


God Used Me As A Hammer

by ialpiriel



Series: Shadows Get Long [4]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Birds, Caesar's Legion, Cannibalism, F/F, F/M, Female Friendship, Friendship, Medical Procedures, Morally Ambiguous Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-02
Updated: 2015-11-02
Packaged: 2018-04-29 12:24:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 24,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5127509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ialpiriel/pseuds/ialpiriel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Lucinda arrives in the Mojave, Caesar decides she needs a babysitter, because she’s a woman, not a man. Fucking Legion.</p>
            </blockquote>





	God Used Me As A Hammer

**Author's Note:**

> warnings for violence and gore; body horror, cannibalism, discussions of animal cruelty in various parts  
> "Major Character Death" is tagged bc Boone gets fed to the White Glove Society at one point. Sorry folks.
> 
> originally posted on the [Fallout Kink Meme](http://falloutkinkmeme.livejournal.com/5459.html?thread=15510355#t15510355)

“Look,” she says, fumbles for her box of matches. Already has the cigarette clamped between her teeth, eyes down and watching The Kid’s dog. Aphra? Was that what he’d called her? She’s big and shaggy and she’s looking at Lucinda adoringly. There’s a matted patch of fur under her chin that looks bloody. Real cute. “Look,” she says again, as she gets the cigarette lit. “I don’t give a _shit_ why Caesar wants you here to babysit me. I’m going to do my job, and you are going to stay out of my way. Are we clear?”

Lucullus is humming, on the other end of the raft, his eyes straight ahead. He steadfastly ignores her, because that’s the kind of person he is. The Kid is ignoring her too, but he’s got his arms folded behind his back, his shoulders squared, his chest puffed out. Too big for his boots.

“I said, are we clear?” she says again, turning her eyes on him. Boys in Dog Town couldn’t look her straight in the eye, and she hopes The Kid is the same. Cow him into listening to her. 

Vulpes called him _Strix_. Made him an owl, like Owls aren’t a whole helluva lot smarter than this kid. This kid’s still wet behind the ears, trying to be big because he knows when he’s up against someone he can’t match.

He keeps his mouth shut, and she narrows her eyes. Stands up off her crate, takes a step closer. It rocks the raft, and Lucullus shoots her a dirty look.

She has to lean up to get into The Kid’s face.

“I _said_ ,” she hisses, “are we _clear_?”

She sees his throat bob.

“Yes,” he says.

“Good,” she replies, spitefully stubs her cigarette out on his pauldron. She’ll relight it later, when she’s not quite so willing to shove him in the river and hold him under until he stops moving.

The dog yips at her, and she squats to pet her.

“Good girl,” she murmurs, voice low. “Not your fault he’s an insubordinate shit, is it, huh girl?”

The dog pants happily as Lucinda scratches her chin.

***

She leads The Kid back to Wolfhorn Ranch, but she doesn’t feed him. Doesn’t talk to him, either, lets him keep up his obstinate silence.

They skirt Searchlight easy, though they go close enough to the airport that the radscorpions are on alert. She takes potshots at one of them with her repeater--proud of herself when the bullet turns its claw to a shelly, chunky mess. Bug keeps going, but another shot to the face kills it. The Kid makes a noise behind her, and she’s not sure if he’s horrified, unimpressed, or nervous. She’s not going to respond. He’s not her problem.

Well, he is, but if he gets himself eviscerated by a deathclaw, _that’s_ not her problem. Maybe she’d get a better babysitter then.

Dinner at the ranch is gecko steak and sliced, fried-in-molerat-fat yucca roots. Roots are the same as Old Seagull would make, though hers were always flavored differently. She had more spices than a jar full of dried jalapeños, too, though. Jalapeños, a wrinkly onion, and a clove of garlic, starting to sprout.

The Kid doesn’t eat the steaks, eats the brahmin jerky out of his backpack instead.

The dog--her name _is_ Aphra; The Kid had called her earlier in the day when she went after a coyote--happily eats the jerky out of the burlap sack hanging on the wall above the stove. She whines until Lucinda feeds her a few bites of gecko steak too, the beggar.

The Kid never lets her out of his sight, except when she tells him she’s gonna go piss behind the shack. He gives her that much privacy.

At least he takes his job seriously.

When they turn in for the night, she tosses him a blanket.

“Sleep on the floor,” she says, hangs her hat and coat on the hook on the wall. Maybe she’s being a little petty, but that’s why he’s here, isn’t it? Because someone, somewhere, decided she couldn’t do this on her own, because she has tits.

“I didn’t--” he starts, and she turns on him. She raises her eyebrows.

“I don’t give a shit,” she replies. “You’re a legionary. You can handle it.”

He stares at her for a moment, the blanket held to his chest. Opens his mouth like he’s going to say something.

Then he closes his mouth, squares his shoulders. Turns around and rolls out his bedroll, curls up on it.

Lucinda lays down on the mattress, and Aphra jumps up next to her. She pulls her own blanket up to her waist, rolls on her side to face away from him.

He falls asleep well before her, and she spends her time counting his breaths. Easier than counting the cracks in the wood, or bighorners like one of her coworkers back in the NCR suggested.

She falls asleep somewhere after breath two hundred, though she couldn’t say when.

He breathes very loudly.

***

“What are we doing?” The Kid hisses. They’re both laid flat on the top of the bluff, looking down on the ranger station. There are three ghouls and two--smoothskins, Lucinda thinks the ghouls call them. Regular humans.

“Sending a message,” she replies. “Why?”

“How are we going to do that?” he asks. “Write them a letter? Make a paper airplane?”

“Kill all of them except the comm officer, and then we bleed him into a bucket, use that to paint the bull onto whatever flat surface we can find.”

“We’re _what_?” The Kid--and she should stop calling him that, at least call him “Strix” like Vulpes did--goes pale.

“We’re butchering the ranger station, and sending them a message they can’t pretend was something else.”

“What message are we sending exactly?” Strix asks.

“ _Non timebo homines_ ,” Lucinda replies. “Write that under the bull. I’ll deal with the ranger.”

“I’m not painting a bull in blood.” His nose is wrinkled, like he’s horrified, like the Legion hasn’t done worse. Maybe she should have walked him through Nipton on the way back from the Fort.

“Fine. You take care of the ghouls, and I’ll take care of the two ranking officers. Hope your machete is sharp and your armor is thick.” She grins at him, the one the boys at home always compared to one of the feral dogs.

***

By the time he's taken out one of the ghouls--he has a gun! what’s he supposed to do against a revolver?--Lucinda has already killed the senior ranger and one of the junior rangers, and has rendered the comm officer unconscious. Strix machetes the last ghoul--who has turned his attention to Lucinda--in the back of the neck, and he falls with a thump. Lucinda finishes him off with a single shot.

“Now comes the fun part,” she says, wipes the blood off the barrel of her repeater with a rag from one of her pockets. She slings it back over her shoulder, clicks the safety on one-handed and without looking. “Find me a coil of rope, and then come over here to the watchtower. I need your muscle.”

She drags the comm officer over to the watchtower while Strix roots through the boxes of supplies for a rope. The officer is out good, and doesn’t wake up, even when his head bumps over a rock.

Strix eventually comes back with the rope, but he looks squeamish.

“If you didn't think you could do this, why did you volunteer?” she asks, as she ties a knot around the officer’s left foot. She heaves the rope up onto the platform of the watchtower with a grunt, walks up the ramp with sharp steps that she can see Strix is struggling to not flinch at.

“I didn’t volunteer,” he replies, gives the unconscious officer a nervous look. “Vulpes picked me to do this.”

“Ah.” Well, that explains the squeamishness. He’s here to get on her nerves. Fuckin’ Vulpes Inculta and his goddamn petty love of tormenting her. She loops the rope around the roof support once, then tosses it back down. “Put you here on punishment, whether he said so or not.” She tries not to laugh. “Pull that rope until he’s high enough off the ground you can set a bucket underneath his head, and then a little higher. Once you get him high enough, tie the end of the rope around his other foot and run a spear through his eye. We need him braindead, not going stiff and cold.”

“He told me he thought I’d do well at this job. It’s not punishment.” Strix hauls on the rope, and the comm officer dangles limply. Another heave on the rope, and his hips leave the ground, a third and his shoulders and head are all that are left laying. 

“You believe what he tells you?” Lucinda asks as she starts down the ramp, as he hauls a fourth time. The ranger’s head leaves the ground, and he swings from the force and the straightening. Aphra sits at the gate and wags her tail, watching Strix sweat and Lucinda supervise.

The officer begins to stir when Strix has him dangling two feet off the ground, and Lucinda is nudging a bucket underneath him.

“Tie off his other foot, you have enough height he can lose an inch or two if you tie it badly.” Lucinda points at the ranger’s foot. “Make sure the knot won’t slip. We need him to stay up, especially if you don’t manage to kill him with one stab and he tries to fight back.” 

Which he’s going to do, at this rate. He’s breathing faster, beginning to move his arms and legs. While Strix fumbles with the rope, Lucinda goes to get a piece of twine--tie the officers hands, so he can’t do anything. Don’t need someone trying to fight you off while you bleed them out. That’s no fun.

Not that any of this business is _fun_ , but.

It doesn't need to be more difficult than it already is.

The officer is starting to twist like he's waking up by the time she gets back. He’s still out for the time it takes for her to tie his wrists together, and then tie them to his stomach--Strix is still fumbling with the rope, trying to hold the officer up and tie it at the same time.

Lucinda takes pity on him--it’s not easy, it’s better to tie both feet at once, and then loop the rope over a hook, haul whatever you’re butchering off the floor with a winch--and ties an easy noose with slack she pulls. She hooks it around his foot, and it holds, so he hangs. He’s twitching. Waking up.

“You ever bled an animal before?” she asks Strix, who’s taken a step back.

“No,” he replies.

“Just hacked people to death. I figured you hadn’t. Give me your machete.”

Strix hands it over, and she squats next to the comm officer.

“It’s easier with a knife with a point, since you can sever more veins at once, but we don’t need speed, we just need blood. Two veins in the throat that are easy to reach from the front.” She presses two fingers to the bottom of the officers chin, tilts his head back so he swings. Looks up at Strix as she does. He grunts, and she grunts back. “Right at the bend here, you want to--” and she lifts the machete. It’s an awkward angle, a backslash from left to right, but she brings the machete down at the junction of his jaw and throat.

There’s a spray of blood and a gargle, and she straightens up, hands the bloody machete back to Strix.

“I’ll have you do it, next time.”

“Next time?” he asks.

“Oh, yeah.” Lucinda takes a step back, wipes her hands on her hand towel, wipes the blood off her sleeves. “There are six of these ranger stations, all around the Mojave, all in a day’s walk from here. We send a message at one, we may as well send a message to them all.”

“I understand you want to prove your allegiance to the Legion, but there’s no need to--”

“I’m not proving anything,” she cuts him off. She reaches for her pack of cigarettes, lights one before she continues. “I’m sending a message to the NCR. Their rangers don’t scare me, and there’s nothing they can do to stop me.” She goes quiet, then, puts her pack of cigarettes away so she can stick her hands in her pockets, watch the blood drip into the bucket.

They stand in silence for a long minute, waiting for the blood to stop completely. When it does, Lucinda shrugs off her coat, throws it onto the platform. She grinds out her cigarette in the dirt and grabs the bucket, before hauling it toward the comm tent. She steps over the three rangers’ corpses, doesn’t bother to go around them.

She sets the bucket on the ground and dips her hand in.

She paints the bull quickly--brutal, efficient, a swipe here, a line there, two long S-curves for horns, circles for its ankles, long slow curve for his belly and a U for his tail, capped by a handprint. once the outline is painted--better than she expected, on grimy canvas, she has to admit--she begins to fill it in with whole palmfuls of blood.

She can’t stop all the trickles, but the canvas absorbs most of the blood at least. Strix stays leaning against the wall, near their hanged officer, and Aphra stays guarding the stairs.

The words she paints above the bull are laborious, slow, one letter at a time. The blood trickles down to her elbow as she writes,

_NON_

_TIMEBO_

_HOMINES_

When she finishes, she wipes her arm down with a scarf she grabs off one of the ranger’s necks. There are still smears everywhere, but she won’t leave handprints behind when she touches things at least.

As Strix stands and watches--the ass, not bothering to help--she hauls the three ghoul rangers’ corpses over, lines them up beneath the painted tent.

“Get the ranger,” she tells him, points at the dead ranger sprawled across the stairs. “Bring him here.”

‘What are you going to do with him? The longer we spend here, the more time there is for someone to find us and call for backup.”

“I’m arranging them,” Lucinda snaps, crosses one of the ghouls’ arms over his chest. “Just bring him here and trust that I know what I’m doing.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Strix agrees, and it makes her heart jump a little. She tries not to laugh. Ma’am. What a nice thing to be called by a legionary. That’s never happened before, and she could get used to it.

She’s folded most of the ghouls’ arms over their chests, but as Aphra and Strix come towards her, she pauses.

Aphra plops down at her side, panting.

Lucinda moves to the last ghoul’s side, hacks through the meat at his elbow with her combat knife. When she can see bone and tendon--uncomfortably white and bloodless, even covered by ghoulskin--she rearranges again, settles one knee hard on the ghouls bicep and wrenches the arm the wrong direction, until bone and cartilage snap.

Then she waves it in front of Aphra.

“Hey girl, hey girl, look at this. You want this?” she asks, half standing, moving her shoulders and body like she’s intending to play. Aphra hops up, wiggles her butt, yips.

Lucinda throws the half-arm, and Aphra takes off after it.

Strix looks like he's going to be sick, as Lucinda laughs at Aphra's thrilled response.

***

“What’s your name?”

“Strix.”

“Not that one.”

“What other name do I have?” Wrinkles his nose.

“What did your mother call you?”

He’s silent for a long minute.

“What’s your name?”

“Guille.”

“Guille?”

“Yeah.” Averts his eyes.

“Wouldn’t have pegged you as one.” Long drag on her cigarette.

“Call me Strix, though.”

“Sure.”

***

“I heard an advertisement for a caravan going north. Toward New Canaan.”

“Why would we want to go to New Canaan?” Strix asks. He still won't eat her food, but now that they’re firmly in Strip territory, it’s not too hard for him to buy his own damn brahmin steaks.

“Heard rumors of the Burned Man up that way.” Lucinda gnaws at her strip of jerky. “I don’t need to prove anything to the Legion, but if I have a shot at the bastard, I’m going to take it.”

“Don’t you have things you’re supposed to be doing _here_?”

“They can wait,” Lucinda replies. “It’ll be a week or two at most. Things here have held for five years, I think they can wait a week longer.”

He snorts at that, but doesn’t try to argue.

***

“Back there, that whole time, you called me your--husband?”

“Yeah.” It’s two weeks back into the Mojave, but at least this whole tribal war misadventure only took a week. Five weeks total, that’s just over a month. Thankfully.

“Do you--”

“No.” This cigarette is burning down, and she scrounges for another one. If she keeps up the chainsmoking, maybe he won’t ask dumb questions.

“Hm.”

Ha! Is he picking up the noncommittal grunt? What a fantastic character development. She tries not to laugh.

“Do you have a husband?” he asks, and she feels herself go stiff. She determinedly smokes the cigarette instead. Ignores him in favor of scratching behind Aphra’s ears. They walk in silence for a minute before he asks, again, “Do you have a husband?”

“Yeah,” she bites out.

“I thought you would,” and he sounds so fucking _proud_ like every woman under the Legion who’s not a slave isn’t “married” to some ranking officer.

“It’s not all that hard to guess,” she replies. “You’re not married, I know that much.” And she’s sure he’s wrinkling his nose and scowling at her, because that’s what he does. “Don’t rank high enough yet to be married.” Shove the knife, twist it. “Probably won’t for a good, long time.” Yank the knife out, let him bleed.

He shuts up, after that, until they’re back in the Mojave.

***

“What does your husband do?”

“Breeds dogs.”

They’re huddled in the shack they slept in the first night, out of the way of a nascent sandstorm. There’s a hot plate set up on the stovetop, a can of beans heating. The canvas sack of jerky is open between Lucinda and Strix, where they sit on the bed. Aphra is stretched out on the floor, on a dog bed made of ratty blankets. Boots are next to the door, coats and hats are on their hooks, backpacks are unpacked and airing out on the table.

“Is Aphra one of his?” Strix looks fascinated by the possibility.

“Don’t know,” Lucinda replies, digs for another piece of jerky. “She’s young enough she would’ve been born after I was sent west. She could be. Dog Town?”

“Yeah, she is.”

“Better chance, then.” She swallows the last of her piece of jerky, reaches for a cigarette. “I wouldn’t know, though, since I was never very involved with the dogs.”

“But your husband…” and he trails off. Knows what’s good for him.

“Women have lives outside their husbands and owners,” Lucinda replies, lights her cigarette. She wiggles back on the bed, rests her shoulders against the wall. Stretches out her legs, surveys her toes. Strix has ugly feet, too, though at least he’s got all his toenails. Impressive, for a legionary. “I worked in a slaughterhouse. I’m good at killing brahmin. Bighorners, too. Dogs. Other wives had their jobs.”

He’s picking at his hangnails, hands in his lap. He glances over at her.

“DId you enjoy it?”

“It’s work.” She keeps studying the back of her coat, hanging on the wall. It’s deathclaw leather, so it’s held up against the bullets better than Strix’s brahmin-leather armor has, but it’s starting to show wear and tear. Might be worth clearing out Quarry Junction, if it’ll get her a few more hides to tan. Reinforce a few parts with bulletproof mesh, too, that’ll keep it intact longer. “Kept me busy, kept me out of that shack. Kept me covered in blood so I wasn’t so pretty, too.”

“You’re pretty anyway,” he says, then immediately clams up. “Sorry,” he says, jumpy. She vaguely hopes he’s remembering the raider who called her pretty--amongst other things--so that she had hacked his leg off at the knee, let the raider scream and cry himself to death in a puddle of his own blood. Doesn’t have anything against Strix personally, at least not anymore, but whatever power she can maintain in this relationship is power she needs.

“It’s alright,” she tells him, and she’s not sure if it is, really. Maybe. Maybe not. Time will tell.

Aphra twitches in her sleep, yips. Lucinda stubs her cigarette out in the overflowing ashtray next to her on the bed.

Outside, the storm picks up.

***

“DId you like the dogs?”

“Never had one bite me.”

“Yeah, but did you like them?”

A long silence.

“I started poisoning his best dog the day after he fucked me the first time. Everyone knew, but the women understood, and the dogs forgave me if I brought them brahmin bones from the slaughterhouse.”

“Did you like the dogs?”

“Yes.”

“What was the name of your favorite?”

“Corva.” A long pause. “He let me name her.”

“Pretty name.”

“Mmm.”

***

“You should go lay down for a while.” Lucinda knows the sniper--Boone? was that his name?--believes her, when she tells him Manny Vargas sold his wife to the Legion. He didn’t, of course, but why would she out a Legion sympathiser when other possibilities--possibilities that will dramatically reduce an NCR elite sniper’s effectiveness--exist?

“Yeah,” he agrees.

Strix and Aphra are still standing over Manny’s corpse, down below, the back of his skull shattered into paste.

The sun is coming up, the beginning of dawn over the cliffs to the east.

Lucinda takes the stairs down two at a time, the beret sliding off her head quickly enough that she shoves it into a pocket instead of trying to secure it.

“We'll take him out of town,” Lucinda says, squatting next to Manny’s corpse.

“Why?” Strix asks. “He’s not our problem.”

“I have my reasons,” Lucinda replies.

“No,” Strix replies, crosses his arms over his chest. “Tell me why.” Lucinda looks up at him--fuck, he’s shrimpy for a guy but even then he’s got a good two inches on her--and bares her teeth.

“We dispose of the body,” she snaps, points at Manny’s corpse. “Does the sniper a favor--doesn’t have to see his old friend’s mangled body lying out here anymore--and does the town a favor too--they don’t have to deal with it either.”

“Are we actually trying to make friends in this town?” Strix asks, drops his voice. He glances back at the motel--he’s unsubtle as they come--and drops his arms from across his chest.

“No,” Lucinda replies. “We’re disposing of the body. Making the sniper think we’re his friends and that we’re very sorry for what happened. Dig a grave, make a marker, bury the body. Look, if you don’t want to help, you can go sit in the motel lobby again. Make small talk with Jeannie May about how great the Legion is.” She keeps her voice down, swallows as many of her consonants as she can so anyone listening won’t be able to make sense of it. “I’ve carried corpses before and I’m sure I’ll do it again. Only wanted your help to make it easier.” She turns her back, then, squats to get her arms under Manny’s armpits. Not good for carrying a corpse, but if anyone’s watching, at least it looks like she cares about what happens to the poor sap’s body.

“Fine.” Strix elbows her out of the way, and she lets him pick Manny up. Maybe that’s what she needs to do--play on his insecurities over the fact she’s a competent adult who can--and has--disposed of the aftermath of her fights. “To the east?” he asks.

“Yeah,” she agrees. Reaches for a cigarette. Lights it, while Strix hauls the body down the road, toward the hills. “I’ll grab a shovel.” 

Strix grunts.

***

“You ever dug a grave?”

“No. That’s for--”

“Slaves, right.”

Tosses him the shovel.

“Six feet long and six feet deep. Dig.”

“And you’re just going to stand there?”

“You’re the one with the muscles.”

“You’re the one who wants to bury him.”

“And you’re the one with the shovel. Dig.”

***

She doesn’t bother to remember the prospector’s name, just flirts enough so he’ll follow her back to her shack on the hill above the farm. Strix follows a half hour behind, looks pissy as hell when she wanders off with this scruffy, nameless prospector. If he’s having feelings for her, she needs to cut it off, soon. Needs him to stay indifferent to her as a person.

Prospector is easy enough to dispatch--a knock to the head with the handle of her machete is enough to put him out, and he’s small enough--can’t be any taller than her, honestly--that it’s easy to get him hauled off the ground, once he’s naked and his feet are tied with a rope, hooked onto a winch. She’d found most of the construction materials for this here, like whoever used to live here was planning on starting a brahmin-slaughtering operation. Good thing, if they were.

Strix catches up just as she’s arranging the bucket under the prospector’s head. He stands back as she cuts the prospector’s throat, waits until she turns around to look at him.

“I understood why you did this with the rangers,” he says, and _fuck_ she’s going to have this conversation with him, isn’t she? “But I don’t understand why you’re doing it now. We don’t need blood for anything around here.”

Here goes.

“My jerky stores are getting low,” she replies. She grabs a piece out of her pocket, tosses it to Aphra, who snaps it out of the air. Grabs another piece for herself, bites off half of it. She looks him in the eye as she chews.

She has nothing to hide, here.

Not anymore.

“Your…” he trails off, goes quiet as his eyes go wide. “The jerky is _human_?”

“Not all of it.” And that’s true, sure, gecko and bighorner and brahmin and dogs and coyotes are all less missed than people. More plentiful, want her more dead too. Do a favor to a town, kill the geckos that harass their children, get paid in favors and gecko meat.

“But there is jerky made out of...people.”

“Yeah.” She shoves the rest of this strip in her mouth, chews. Breaks eye contact to turn around and survey this corpse. There’s no fat on him--never really is, on prospectors, if she’s going to be honest. Need a lot of regular meals to have fat--but there’s a decent amount of muscle.

“Why?” he asks. He sounds horrified, which she has to admit is at least a good thing. She worries sometimes, about the people the Legion turns out. Good to know he at least still has that taboo ingrained.

“Because I’ve been a lot of different things,” she replies. It’s useless trying to explain tribe, explain birds, explain being, to someone who has nothing to compare it to.

“Including a cannibal!” His eyebrows are down but his eyes are wide, like he's looking for an explanation.

“You don’t understand.” Still doesn’t turn to look at him. She hasn’t heard him move from his spot, but she can hear him breathing, can hear Aphra panting, can hear the _plink, plink, plink_ of the last of the blood dripping into the bucket.

“Then explain,” he demands.

“You haven’t earned my past, yet,” she snaps. “Go sit inside and eat your shitty brahmin steaks, I have things to do.”

She trades her machete for the knife she keeps tucked inside her coat, starts her cutting.

Strix doesn't say anything, doesn’t move, until she’s slicing through the tissue holding the prospector’s intestines in place, and then dumping them in another bucket.

Then he goes inside, with Aphra following behind.

***

“The man who shot me owns a casino.”

“That’s nice.” Strix hasn’t talked to her for five days, now, kept his mouth resolutely shut except to offer shitty platitudes like ‘that’s nice’ and ‘okay’ and ‘behind you’ when what she says demands an answer. He’ll get over it. Eventually.

“I’m going to get my revenge.”

“You do that.”

“I will,” she says.

“Hm.”

Aphra stays sprawled across Lucinda’s lap, while Strix won’t even look at her. Funny, that divide between dog and owner.

***

“Your friend will have to stay here,” Victor tells her, and she jerks her head at Strix and Aphra to sit at one of the tables in the casino, while she takes the elevator up. They comply without a word, though they carefully arrange themselves to be out of sight of the securitrons guarding the elevator.

She doesn’t blame them.

***

She flirts with Benny, and at least he has the presence of mind to think it’s fucked up, even if he agrees to go with her. He has a gun on him, at least, which seems smart, even if it’s not somewhere he can reach easily when he’s naked.

He’s not very good in the sack, mediocre at best. He lets her top, which is more than she expected out of him. He’s entranced by the scar across her chest and stomach, touching it every few seconds even when there’s no reason to. Even when they’re done--or, well, when he’s done--he stays on his side, staring.

“That’s a fancy tattoo,” he says, touching the rattlesnake on her belly, right where its mouth is clamped around its rattle.

“Yeah,” she agrees. At least he’s moved on from the scar, after she gave him some bullshit dodgy line about ‘things happen out in the wastes, you know?’ and laughed it off.

“What’s it for?” he asks.

“I thought it looked nice,” she replies. There’s more to it than that, sure, a half-forgotten conversation with Owl-Eagle when she was ten, about a snake eating its own tail, about things that never end, about loops and Old World symbolism. That was before Owl-Eagle had been Owl-Eagle, back when she had been Head Owl. Back when she was still concerned with symbols and meanings and old things, and not hunger and blood and the Legion. But Benny doesn’t need to hear about it. No one needs to hear about it.

She hears him get up, before dawn. She lets him go. He told her about the platinum chip, about the fact he’s headed to the Fort to find a transmitter station there.

The idiot.

Strix spent the night on the Lucky 38 steps, Aphra at his side. They're still there, when Lucinda strides out of the Tops, information in hand. She talked to the robot, but having Vegas for her own isn’t her goal. She works for the glory of Caesar, not her own ends. Well, she works for her own ends, too, but when it comes to Vegas, she wants no hand in administration.

She’ll _happily_ leave that to Caesar.

***

“You had him crucified.” Siri settles down on the bedroll next to Lucinda’s. Melody follows her into the tent, and curls up under Siri’s arm. Siri runs her hand through Melody’s hair.

“In my defense, he shot me in the head. Twice.” After a moment, where she pats at her pockets for her cigarettes, “Also he was a shitty lay.”

“Watch it,” Siri replies, nods down at Melody, who’s fiddling with the unraveling threads of her half-dress.

“He deserved it,” Melody says, quiet. “Miss Lucy told me about some of the bad things he did.”

“He’s not like the slaves they crucify,” Lucinda continues, stares at where the tent meets the ground instead of the other two people in the tent. “He did bad things, so he deserves to suffer for a few days before he dies.”

“You need to watch yourself,” Siri murmurs, voice low. “It won’t be too long before they decide that you’re more trouble than you’re worth, and hang you up too.”

“The ravens here know me already,” Lucinda replies, finally remembers that she shoved a half dozen cigarettes into her bra before she talked to Lucullus. She digs one out, finds her lighter in her boot. “They won’t bother me. Do you think I can get away with smoking?”

“It’s bad for you,” Siri replies.

“Yeah,” Lucinda agrees, holds the cigarette in her mouth, brings the lighter up. She raises her eyebrows at Siri.

“If you’re careful, you can,” Siri tells her with a sigh.

“Thank you,” Lucinda murmurs. There’s a good breeze tonight, which should help. As long as the wind doesn’t change directions.

***

Lucinda sings Melody to sleep, after she finishes her cigarette. One of the songs Owl-Eagle liked to sing to her, when she was little. A song about, if she had wings like a bird, she would fly over the river and be free of all her troubles. She tries not to think about the last time someone sang it to her. Too long ago.

When Melody is asleep, it’s just the two of them, Siri and Lucinda. Lucinda tucks Melody in, and then she and Siri huddle together on top of a blanket, so close they’re breathing the same air.

Lucinda keeps her eyes closed, can’t look Siri in the eye. It’s too many reminders of how fragile what she has is.

“What was your town like?” she asks, finally.

“Small,” SIri replies. “We had a doctor, though. A good woman.”

“What were your parents like?”

“Also good people.” Siri pauses. “An answer for an answer?”

“Sure,” Lucinda laughs. 

“Where are you from?” Siri’s fingertips press against the back of Lucinda’s hand, and Lucinda moves her other hand into its place, so Siri can place her fingers in her palm.

“All over,” Lucinda replies. “But my mother was born to a tribe in Lonestar. I was born there, too, but the tribe moved a lot.” She yawns, presses her hand over her mouth. “What was your mother like?”

“Could have wrestled a brahmin without breaking a sweat.” Lucinda can hear the smile in Siri’s voice. “Knew her way around a kitchen, and wasn’t afraid to let you know it. She would make this wonderful jalapeno-potato casserole…”

“Mmmm,” Lucinda hums. She smiles. “Old Seagull would fry yucca roots in brahmin fat for us sometimes, sprinkle on white cinnamon and jalapeños. What was your next question?”

“What was _your_ mother like?”

Lucinda cracks her eyes open, then, meets Siri’s gaze. She rolls onto her back, inches closer, stretches her arms over her head and rolls her shoulders until her spine pops. She rests one hand on her stomach, lets the other stay above her head.

“Magpie,” she finally says. There’s a moment where they’re both silent.

“I’m not familiar with your tribe.” Siri places her hand over Lucinda’s, and Lucinda tucks Siri’s fingers between hers.

“Ah, right.” Lucinda closes her eyes, takes a deep breath. “Magpies are Old World souls in a New World shape. The sorts of people who can find a valuable at a glance in a pile of junk. Can find places for valuables too. Counterparts to Seagulls, who are about eating, about keeping themselves safe and fed.” She pauses for a moment then. “I’m not sure what you’d be, if you were one of us. Could be a lot of things. Vulture, maybe, or a sort of Owl. Could be a songbird, too.” Siri wouldn’t be a songbird, small and fragile as they are. Owl, Vulture, Eagle, maybe a Raven. No one much dedicated to healing, in the tribe, but everyone knew a little. “My turn.”

“Hm,” Siri grunts, waits for Lucinda’s question.

Lucinda pauses. 

“Have any of the men here hurt you?” she finally asks. It’s a loaded question, from a woman, to a woman, in a camp full of legionaries.

“Not yet,” Siri replies, and Lucinda lets her shoulders ease.

“When they do, tell me who it is. I’ll get him for you.”

“Hm.” Siri makes a noise that’s a little like a laugh. “Thank you.”

“Your turn to ask.”

“What were you, in your tribe?”

“Raven. Smart bird. Going to lead, when my mentor died.”

“A bird for death, too.” Siri had her eyes closed, but opens one to look at Lucinda.

“A bird for death, yeah.” Lucinda agrees. “Bird for a lot of things.”

***

“I thought you were going to buy a slave to bring back?” Strix asks, when she gets back to the motel room in Novac.

“I did,” Lucinda agrees, sets her backpack on the sofa. Bends to stretch her back and shoulders, feels a few things pop. She should get that looked into, somewhere. “She tried to run, though. Shot her.”

“You didn’t eat her, too, did you?”

“No. Buried her near the shack.” She turns her back on him to hang her coat on the coatrack. “Was someone I used to know, I didn’t recognize her at first.”

“So you do have feelings. Thought you would’ve strung her up and butchered her too.”

“Of course I have feelings.” She snorts and turns around. Puts her hands on her hips. “I respect personal history.”

Strix is sprawled across the bed, with Aphra half in his lap.

He doesn’t look at her, and she looks him over. Looks like he came back here and then just--didn’t do anything. Looks like he hasn’t moved from his spot on the bed since he got back yesterday.

“I’m sorry,” he says, after a long minute of silence. “The way I’ve been acting, with the silence and all.”

“I get it,” she replies. Heads for the bathroom because she needs to wash some of the road grime out from under her fingernails and the Legion grime out of her hair. “I get it.”

“Are you alright?” he asks.

Lucinda leans out of the bathroom, curls her fingers tight around the doorframe.

“Why?” she asks, narrows her eyes. Why would he ask if she was alright? Was there a plot to make sure she _wasn’t_?

“I just--worry about you.”

“You don’t have to,” she tells him, leans back into the bathroom. Cranks the faucet handles, lets the water run until it’s clear. Takes her hair out of braids, soaks her hands, starts combing with her fingers.

“Yeah, but I do,” he replies after a minute.

“Don’t,” she replies. “I don’t want your concern. I don’t want your worry, and I especially don’t want you thinking you’re responsible for me.”

“I _am_ responsible for you,” he replies.

“No, you’re responsible for what I do.” She bites it out, bares her teeth at her fractured reflection in the broken mirror. Curls her hands into fists, presses the backs of her fingers into the chipped ceramic of the sink. Here she still has power. Here she can still fight back. “You are not responsible for _me_.”

He’s silent, then. Calculating, she’s sure.

“Fine then,” he says, after a minute. “I’m responsible for what you do, and that includes getting yourself killed for no good reason. Before you do anything stupid, you clear it with me, alright? I don’t want you to end up dead.”

“Fuck off,” she snaps. Fuck off, fuck off, fuck off, she left Dog Town so she didn’t have to deal with this ‘I am man and I own you’ shit, and now here she is, at the edge of NCR territory, sharing a room with a man who’s trying to pull it. “I’m going to kill Mr. House, and then I’m going to go talk to the Boomers about allying with Caesar, and about getting a howitzer firing mechanism for Lucius, and if you want to come along, you’re welcome to fucking babysit me.”

Out of the bathroom, hair still down and half-wet, coat off the rack, hat jammed on her head so she can make a dramatic exit. Slam the door open, walk out, shoulders back and chin up, as he scrambles after her, fumbling on his boots and yelling that he didn’t mean it like that, he’s sorry, he’s coming, he promises, he’s...

***

“So when did you start eating people?”

“You haven’t earned an answer yet.”

“Recently?”

A long silence.

“Or a long time ago?”

“You’re doing a shitty job of apologizing.”

“You're too good at butchering people to make this recent.”

“Are you waiting for me to punch you? Because that’s going to happen if you don’t fuck off with this right now.”

“Sorry.”

“No, you’re not. Just...shut up.”

***

Securitrons fall easy to a bullet to the front screen, and the elevator ride down to Mr. House’s bunker room is quick. She walks past the terminal to look at Mr. House, first, to see this great and feared human being.

He barely looks human anymore.

She’s not sure what she expected. Humans shouldn’t live much past seventy, in her experience, so two hundred is...something else. Looks like something else.

He’s got more wires and tubes than a straight-up robot, which is a little horrifying. People die, and that’s a fact of life, but this--whatever this is--it’s beyond unnatural.

She goes back to the terminal, selects the option to release him from his tube.

She waits, as the seal is broken, as he’s extended out on an arm from his pod. He wobbles uselessly when it jerks to a stop.

“I’ve come for you,” Lucinda tells him. She doesn’t move from her place behind the terminal. She doesn’t want to get any closer than she has to, more out of worry he’s going to flop all over her than anything else.

“Why have you done this?” he rasps out. “Centuries of preparation, so much good, undone…” He trails off with a wheeze. He’s all there, then. His brain still works, his consciousness is intact.

She lights a cigarette, decides he’s secured well enough for her to step closer. She takes a deep inhale, but doesn’t let the smoke sit before she blows it back into his face.

“By Caesar’s command, you will die,” she tells him, and even she can hear the way her voice shakes. He’s old, an old world _thing_ , not an old world _soul_ , an old world _thing_ with hands in the new world. She reaches for her machete.

“Slavery? The future of mankind?” She thinks maybe she can hear fear in his voice. Good. Good that someone else is afraid of the Legion. Good that someone else knows not to fight back. “What have you done?”

She doesn’t answer that, draws her machete. What has she done? Owl-Eagle’s voice in her ear, whispering, _what_ hasn’t _she done_?

“Time for you to die, Mr. House.” She can hear her voice catch, can hear it break. She takes a draw off her cigarette, raises her machete.

One of his hands reaches out, muscles too atrophied to do much.

“May there be a hell for you,” He wheezes. “A tartarus.” She knows that one, from the old old _old_ stories. “Bleak, unending.”

And there’s not enough of him left for real emotions, she doesn’t think, but she can hear the hate in the words. Hears other things, too, Old Raven’s final words, “May you rot in a hell of your own making,” right at the top of the list.

Stop thinking.

Don’t think about them.

She hefts the machete around. Draws her arm back for a long easy swing into his neck.

“Already is one,” she replies, heaves the machete into his neck, then, ignores the whooping of the life support alarms as he gurgles and goes limp. “It’s called Dog Town.”

She takes the elevator back up to the penthouse, and when she gets there, she sits against the elevator door, head between her knees, trying not to think of anything.

She gives herself fifteen minutes before she goes back down to the suite and retrieves Strix and Aphra.

***

“Let’s go.”

“You weren’t up there very long.”

“Wasn’t much to do.”

“Are you alright?”

“Yes.” Bares her teeth.

“You’ve been crying.”

“Yes.”

“Are you sure you’re alright.”

Bares her teeth again.

“It’s not your problem.”

***

“Are you sure you trust this rebreather? I mean, you fixed it with wonderglue and cornsilk.”

“I trust it as much as I trust anything else in this damn desert.” She shucks off her coat, leaves it in a heap on the dock. Lace-up boot covers, next, tossed on top of the coat. Boots. Socks. She has to move down the pier, then, so she’s standing in a few inches of water, so she doesn’t burn the bottoms of her feet on the pavement.

And then the dress.

She wads it up and throws it onto the pile of her clothes. Strix stares at her--mostly at her face, but it’s a pretty determined stare.

“I’m going in naked,” she tells him. “Because I don't want to have to wear a wet pair of underwear around for the rest of the day.”

“I, uh. Okay then.” He turns around. “Is that safe?”

“Safer than trying to swim in a dress,” she replies. She momentarily considers winging her bra at the back of his head, to watch him sputter and flail and do his best to not look at her. Instead she tosses it on the top of her pile of clothes. “Keep the detonator dry, and I’ll be back in just a few minutes.”

She secures the rebreather on her face. It’s uncomfortable, the way any sort of face covering is, but she can breathe easy. Hopefully she stays able to breathe easily.

She takes a deep breath before she wades deeper, right off the drop-off, just in case.

It’s a long way out, but she can see the plane, even if the lake water makes her eyes burn.

***

“You’re sure this is where the radio signal is coming from?” Strix is staring at the grate in the middle of the awful green puddle.

“Fairly certain,” she agrees, hauling the grate up. ‘If you don’t want to come down with me, you’re welcome to keep watch up here. I’m not sure how you’re going to get Aphra down the ladder anyway.”

“Might be something down there, though,” Strix replies, and awww, he’s worried. Great. Just what she needs. It’s not like she's already gone off on him for it once.

“I’m an adult,” she replies. Finally gets the grate hauled to the side. There's a ladder down, which is good. Nothing like dropping ten feet down into the dark without a ladder back up. “And I have a gun.”

“Yeah, but what if--”

“We talked about this already.” She cuts him off. “You can follow me down, or you can stay here, I don’t care.”

He scowls down at her as she hauls herself over the side and down onto the ladder.

“I’ll wait up here, but if I hear anything suspicious, I’m following you down.”

“Fine by me,” she agrees. Strix goes to sit against the hill, Aphra at his side.

Under the grate is an entryway for a bunker. There’s a long-dead corpse above the stairs, and she pokes at him before deciding he can wait for her way out.

The hallway branches in three, after the stairs, and she can see the radio in a spotlight, broadcasting the same as her Pip-boy.

Spotlights don’t tend to be a good thing, though, so she checks down the other hallways. One is collapsed in, concrete and rubble burying it. The other one has a terminal, a safe, and a door.

The terminal and the door are both locked, and whatever is in there can wait.

She takes one step into the room with the radio, and she hears the clunk of the door and the hiss of the air vents before the dark swallows her up.

***

He spends three days pacing up and down the length of the bunker, waiting for the door to unlock. It unlocks, then, and he searches the bunker top to bottom, looking for a door out. Lucinda’s things are neatly stashed in one of the footlockers, and he checks them over to make sure they're all there--her coat, her dress, her boots, her gun, her stash of water and jerky.

“GONE TO THE SEERA MADRE” the graffiti on the wall proclaims.

He’s not sure what the Seera Madre is, but it doesn't matter because Lucinda’s goddamn disappeared.

It’s ten more days when he’s awoken by a grinding noise from elsewhere in the bunker.

Lucinda staggers up a flight of steps in the other room, the one with the now-unlocked door. She’s leaning heavily on a crutch, most of her left leg wrapped in bandages, some plaster, and a brace. Her leg is at a wrong angle, though, from mid-shin down, and the bandages and plaster are soaked in blood and what looks like pus.

“Where have you been?” he asks her, not even bothering to wait for an answer before he wraps his arms around her. She leans into him, presses her cheek to his chest, drops her crutch and lets her arms rest around his waist. “What happened to you?”

“A lot,” she replies. “Get Siri, need a doctor _today_.” She leans back, looks up at him. Her face is smeared in red powder, and she smells like chemicals and sweat and alcohol and, most importantly, blood. Her eyes are wide, and she looks like she’s been hitting chems too hard.

“What happened?” he asks.

“Bear trap,” she replies, unloops her arms from his waist and redeposits them around his neck. “Bed. Can’t stand.”

“Oh, right.” He scoops her up then--has she always been this light?-- and carries her back into the room with the radio. She takes one look at it and yells, trying to crawl out of his arms. He drops her on instinct, and she hits the floor hard. She rolls away, fumbles for a pistol at her belt, and shoots it until it's smoking.

She’s crying.

“What happened?” he asks.

“A lot,” she chokes out. “Lot happened, but you keep those fucking radios away from me.” 

“Okay,” he agrees. “Sorry I dropped you.”

“Just get me sitting down.” She’s grinding her teeth so hard he can hear it, and her hands are shaking. “Please,” she adds, desperate touch in her voice.

He scoops her up again, deposits her on the closest bed.

“Get Siri. Do it now. It’ll take hours. Don’t want to suffer any more.”

“Alright. What do I tell her? How do I get her to leave the Fort?”

“Tell whoever is in charge of her that I’m demanding she come here to help me. Broken leg. Infection. Bear trap. Make something up I don’t fucking--” and she stops and makes a horrible noise as he accidentally jostles her left leg. She rolls onto her side, fingers clawing desperately at anything she can reach--his shoulders and shirt, mostly, although she catches skin and he’s pretty sure he feels her draw blood. When she goes quiet, she’s still breathing hard, air sucking between her teeth. “Give me water, leave it, and _go_.”

“Ok,” he agrees, smooths her hair back. He stacks three footlockers on top of each other, uncaps three bottles of water and leaves them there. “I’m leaving Aphra here to guard you, ok?” he murmurs, brushes her hair back again.

“Fine, fine,” she murmurs, doesn't open her eyes. She sounds like she's drifting off.

“Stay here, alright? Don’t go anywhere.”

“Can’t walk any more,” she replies. “Not going anywhere.”

“Don’t fall asleep either. You’re in bad shape.”

“Coulda told you that.” She reaches for one of the bottles of water, spills a few mouthfuls before she manages to swallow one. “Go.”

***

Siri comes without hesitation, her--owner, Strix supposes--letting her go without a problem, since Strix is, after all, a legionary. She gathers whatever she has around into a bag and follows Strix out of the fort and down to Lucullus’s raft. No one talks on their way down the river.

“Watch for landmines,” Strix tells her, when they disembark from the raft and head north. “The NCR mined this whole area.”

She follows him carefully and closely. Seen enough landmine injuries to know she doesn’t need one.

He tells her what happened: bunker, radio, Lucinda disappeared for ten days and came back with a broken leg--“bear trap’’ he says, and she feels her stomach clench. Could be lockjaw to worry about too, on top of the broken leg.

He leads her to a grate, tells her that Lucinda is down there somewhere. She’s skeptical, but he goes first, so she’ll follow.

The whole bunker smells like dust, like rot, like some underlying bitter chemical smell that has her wrinkling her nose.

Lucinda is laying on one of the bunks bolted to the wall, a bottle of whiskey clutched in her hand and her left leg unwrapped. The room smells like infection and blood and booze--never a good combination, but maybe a necessary one here.

Aphra greets her, and Siri keeps her hands carefully away from the dog. She doesn't need any more bacteria on her hands.

“Do you know if there’s a way to boil water here?” Siri asks Strix.

“I think so. There’s a hot plate in the other room, if that’s alright?”

“Okay. I need a pot of water, then. Please.”

“What else do you need?” he asks, his hands folded behind his back.

“I--” she pauses. Since when has a legionary offered to help? She’ll take this for what she can. “I need a bottle of vodka, if you can find any around. Disinfectant would be better, but I doubt there are any antibiotics here.” Or that he won’t report back to someone higher up that she’s been using chems to treat illness. Not that vodka isn’t a chem, but at least she’s not drinking it. “Any sort of surgical instruments, especially if there’s...” she pauses, turns back to look at Lucinda, laid out on this bed. “A bonesaw. No guarantee I’ll need it, but I might.”

“Right. Vodka, hot water, surgical instruments.”

“Thank you.” She devotes her attention to Lucinda, then.

There’s a medical brace and a pile of bloody, pus-soaked bandages on the floor. They reek like alcohol, underneath the rot-smell.

“Hey, Lucy.” She pats Lucinda’s cheek. She’s burning up, sweaty, grimy, breathing shallow and fast. “It’s Siri. I’m here now.”

Lucinda says something back, words so slurred together that Siri couldn’t tell what language it is--Latin, or English, or some other language.

“I’m going to fix your leg.”

“Good,” Lucinda says. That at least is intelligible.

She just looks, for now, without water to wash her hands. The skin around the break is black and green, worryingly so. The break looks like it’s set, but badly. Thankfully incompletely, within that timeframe.

“What have you been doing to help it heal?” Siri asks. Hopefully Lucinda can provide something relevant and intelligible.

“Brace. Bandages. Whiskey bath once a day until I only had this bottle left.”

“Have you been staying off it?” Siri asks. Obviously not, but.

“Can’t. Collared. I’m hands. Vault. Cloud.”

“Did you sit when you could?” Siri clarifies.

“Yes. Not much. Did what I could.” She reaches for--Siri isn’t sure, Lucinda’s fingers catching on her dress but never holding on.

“Good.”

Strix returns then, a pot of steaming water in his hands.

“Here’s the water,” he tells her. She dunks her hands, hisses as it burns, but then goes to touch the gangrenous flesh.

Lucinda shifts when she touches the dead flesh, but doesn't make a noise until she touches the edges of it, when she wails. Strix flinches, and Aphra barks, and Siri tries to focus on what she’s doing instead.

“It’s gangrene,” Siri tells her, or maybe Strix, mostly just needs to say it. “I’m going to need to remove the dead tissue, then disinfect what’s left, and then reset the bone. Stay with me, Lucy. No passing out, alright? I don’t know how far this infection has spread.”

“Okay,” Lucinda replies. She sniffles.

“Get me a knife,” she tells Strix. “Heat it on the hot plate, sterilize it. Bring it here.”

“Yes ma’am,” he replies, and goes to find a knife.

“Cosmic knife,” Lucinda murmurs. “In bag. Good for cutting.”

“There’s a knife in her backpack that’s good for cutting,” Siri calls after Strix, who makes a noise of acknowledgement. “You might need something to bite down on, when I get to sterilization,” she murmurs to Lucinda. She pushes her hair back out of her face. “It’s not going to be fun.”

“Ha,” Lucinda replies. She curls one hand around Siri’s forearm. “Thank you,” she rasps out. She’s quiet for a moment. Then, just above a whisper, “When he’s gone, dope me up on Med-X. I don’t give a shit.”

“I’m glad to hear it.” She carefully extricates her arm from Lucinda’s grasp as Strix returns with a knife. It’s still glowing red. “You might want something to bite down on for this too.”

“Okay,” Lucinda agrees. “Get my coat. Pieces of leather in the pockets. Good for biting.”

Strix returns momentarily with the squares of leather, and he folds them into mouth-sized rectangles. Lucinda shoves them between her teeth.

“You may need to hold her down,” Siri tells Strix.

‘I’ll be ready,” he reassures her.

The rotten flesh comes away easy, and lacking anywhere else to put it, Siri drops it on the floor. She can clean up later. Right now, she needs to get the gangrene contained, whatever healthy flesh that remains sterilized, and the bone set.

The break is mid-shin, and SIri is nearly to Lucinda’s knee before she finds unequivocally healthy flesh. Lucinda is panting around the leather, but she’s not screaming and she’s still conscious. In the other direction, she’s close to--but not at--her ankle before the skin is healthy and undamaged. That means that there’s internal arteries still supplying blood, which is good. That’s a concern, with an injury like this.

Lucinda does scream when Siri hits healthy flesh, behind the broken bone. The bone is broken in two separate places--a primary break, transverse, presumably from the bear trap, and a second, one end of the bone impacted into the other, caused by the aggravation of walking (and probably running) on an already-broken leg. Strix flinches away at the sound, but Siri forces herself to keep going, cutting away black and green and white until she hits red.

Lucinda is sobbing by the time Siri reaches for the bottle of vodka, her hands balled together in her shirt to keep from clawing at Strix or Siri or the unyielding vinyl cover of the bunk.

“No more cutting,” Siri reassures her. “I'll disinfect it, and then I’ll set the bone, and then you just need to recover.”

Lucinda nods, manages to wrangle the sobs down into whimpers.

The disinfecting goes fast, because most of it is just pouring vodka over the open wound and hoping for the best. Lucinda’s breathing is evening out, which is good, but it still sounds ragged.

“Help me move her to the floor to set her leg.”

“Why the floor?” Strix asks.

“Because I need you to hold her down, and the easiest way for this to get done is for me to sit on her thighs while you sit on her chest.”

“We’re _what_?” Strix blanches.

“Because of the way her leg is broken, and the subsequent injuries she’s inflicted on it, and people's tendency to kick when in pain, it’s easiest if we immobilize her while I put everything back where it’s supposed to be. Usually I have one of the other women help me, but you’re the only one here.”

“Alright,” he agrees, nods.

Lucinda moans as they move her to the floor, her hands finally unclenching from her shirt.

They arrange themselves, Strix kneeling over Lucinda's stomach, Siri sitting on her thighs. She can feel him shift, behind her, like he’s not sure how he’s supposed to be arranged, can feel the rough canvas of Lucinda’s pants on the backs of her thighs.

“On the count of three, I’m going to pull the bone back into place, alright?” Siri asks Lucinda, pats her right knee. “You got it?”

“Mm-hmm,” Lucinda agrees. She grips onto Strix’s hands tightly, so she doesn’t flail.

“Alright, on the count of ONE!” And then Siri yanks so the bones slide back together right. Lucinda makes one tiny, strangled noise, and then goes slack underneath them.

“She passed out.” Strix sounds terrified.

“That’s alright for now. I’ll get her leg set, bandage it, and then we can move her back onto a bed.”

“Is she going to be able to heal from that?” Strix stands up, offers Siri his hand to help her up.

“Time will tell. She’ll have a nasty scar, if she does.”

Siri splints Lucinda’s leg, after wrapping it lightly in bandages. This whole process is going to be a mess, with exposed bone and torn muscles and gangrene and no antibiotics. If she’s lucky, she’ll be allowed to leave and get more medical supplies, though she’s not sure how to explain what happened, or what’s happening, to anyone else. Strix picks Lucinda up and carries her to the other room, off the hallway, lays her down in a much nicer bed. There's even a pillow.

“How long will she be out?” he asks.

“She should be awake soon, but she should rest a lot longer than that. Really, she should be kept unconscious for a few days, to minimize the load on her body, but it’s unlikely we’ll have that luxury.” She needs to dispose of the rotten flesh, still laying on the floor in the other room, wash her hands. Set up a little better, now that she has some time.

“I’ve never seen someone with an injury that bad survive it.” Strix is standing back, watching her and Lucinda both.

“I’ve seen a few,” she says, and she’s not sure she has, really. Maybe one or two, but it happened well before her time. Usually they lose their arm, or their leg, or walk with a severe limp; all things that would disqualify Lucinda as a valuable agent. They have to hope for the best--that’s all they can do here, now, besides what they’re already doing--but even the best may not be good enough. “If you have any hydra, that might help.” Hydra is a crapshoot at best, if she’s going to be honest, but it doesn’t hurt anything neither. Help with the pain, too, which is valuable here.

“I can get some.” He perks up at that. “We have all the materials for it back at the shack.” He narrows his eyes then. “But I don’t trust you to stay here. I know what you slaves are like.”

And that hurts because even if she is across the river, even if she could have a shot at escaping for once, Lucinda is lying there, sweating, most likely dying.

“If I leave, Lucinda dies and you all hunt me down.” She settles onto the floor then, back against the wall, next to the door. Rests her elbows on her knees, lets her hands dangle in front of her. “I know my place.”

“Good,” Strix replies, nods. He says it like it’s something they drilled into him, not like it’s something he believes. She’s gotten good at telling the difference, in the last three years. There’s ample opportunity to practice.

It takes him a moment to realize he’s going to have to make a decision.

“I’m going to lock you in,” he says. “A rock over the grate so you can’t get out.”

“Do you have any food here?” Siri asks. She’d rather not starve here, waiting for Strix to get back.

“There’s some in the footlockers in the other room. That will last you through how long I’ll be away.”

“When can I expect you back?”

“A full day,” he says, and snaps his fingers at Aphra, who’s sitting in the doorway. “We’ll be back by then. I expect you to still be here when we return.”

“I will be,” Siri reassures him. “But I need to dispose of the surgical waste before you go.”

“Of course.” He nods, and if she’s right, he looks queasy.

She doesn’t blame him.

***

“Siri?”

It’s dark out, now, though it hasn’t been for long. Siri’s spent the last couple hours tidying up this room--it’s a mess, with books and scientific instruments thrown haphazardly everywhere--and Lucinda’s stayed dedicatedly unconscious.

“I’m here,” Siri reassures her, is out of her chair in front of the terminal and across the room in a heartbeat. She kneels next to the bed, runs her hand across Lucinda’s forehead.

“Good,” Lucinda rasps. “Water?”

“Of course.” She grabs one of the bottles off the shelf, and helps prop Lucinda up so she can drink comfortably.

After a few swallows, Lucinda sighs.

“Is he here?” she asks, her hand looking for Siri’s, without opening her eyes. Siri curls her fingers around Lucinda’s.

“He went to get the ingredients for a few doses of hydra, since that’s the only anaesthetic I can use here without him having me crucified.”

“Oh.” Then a moment later, “Thank you.” She takes another swig. “There’s a few doses of Med-X in my bag. There’s a cigar box full of chems.”

“Thank god,” Siri sighs, she lets go of Lucinda’s hand and goes to rummage through the backpack. Lucinda chuckles at her response.

“What happened?” she asks.

“We moved you to the floor after I finished abrading, but when I yanked all the pieces of bone back into place, you passed out.” She pulls the cigar box out of the backpack. “As long as you don’t walk on it until it’s healed, or until the muscle and skin have healed enough that I can safely put it in a cast so that the force isn’t on the bone, I shouldn’t have to reset it.” There are a few tins of Mentats in the box, which won’t help here, but there are half a dozen syringes labelled MED-X. She grabs one. “But you currently have an exposed bone, and there’s no way for me to do a skin transplant, so you’re fighting for your life right now, even if it doesn’t feel like it.”

“It does, Doc, believe me.” Lucinda finally opens her eyes as Siri comes back over, syringe in hand. “Hurts like a motherfucker.”

“The fact it hurts is probably a good thing. It means the nerves aren’t dead yet.” Siri checks the volume of Med-X still in the syringe. “I’ll give you the injection in your thigh, if you can roll your pants down.”

“That wasn’t the turn I was expecting here,” Lucinda laughs, but sets her bottle of water aside so she can undo the button of her pants and carefully wiggle them down to mid-thigh--not easy, while trying to not move her leg.

Siri gives her the shot, and Lucinda grits her teeth through the sting.

“It should kick in shortly.” Siri caps the needle. “Is there anything else you need? Food?”

“I wouldn’t mind food, yeah.” Lucinda grunts as she scoots herself further back, to rest her shoulders against the wall.

“I’ll get you something to eat, then.” Siri pats Lucinda’s hand and putters over to the other room to find something to eat. Gecko steaks might be a bad idea, same with any sort of brahmin or bighorner. Some of the snack cakes, maybe, but Siri is still suspicious of how good a two-hundred year old cake can be. She eventually settles on a handful of plastic-wrapped, sliced roots. “I don't know what these are, but I don’t trust half the food over there, and what I do trust might be too much for you right now,” she tells Lucinda as she re-enters the room. Lucinda reaches up to take the roots out of her hands.

“Thanks for looking out for me.” Lucinda sighs, unwraps the plastic. “Yucca, fried in mole rat fat. I can show you how, once I can move again. Told you about them, once, back at the Fort, remember?” She scoots over on the bed, wedges herself in the corner. Sucks a breath in through her teeth as she jostles her leg, presses her fingernails into her thigh for a moment. When she relaxes again, she pats the bed next to her. “Sit with me.” Her voice cracks. Siri pretends to not notice.

Siri carefully settles herself on the bed, crosses her legs at her ankles to give Lucinda enough space.

“Here, try one.” Lucinda holds out a handful of the roots, and Siri carefully takes one slice. Lucinda takes two at a time, wolfs them down. She licks her fingers clean when she’s done. Siri is still nibbling at hers--it’s not _bad_ but it’s a far departure from anything she's used to. It tastes like mole rat, which isn’t a particularly good flavor.

“You cooked these?” Siri finally asks, to break the silence. Of course she did, Strix is too much of a _man_ to know how to cook anything this well, and it’s not like this is the sort of food you buy from a merchant on the road. It starts a conversation, though.

“Yeah,” Lucinda agrees. “Old Seagull taught me how to work a campfire by the time I was eight or nine. She didn't want me to end up starving somewhere if I got separated from the group, or when I went off to get my bird. Turned out to be a practical skill, later, with the Legion. Wife material, thirteen year old girl who can cook and skin an animal and keeps her mouth shut when you tell her to. Young enough to be taught how to be legion, old enough to have practical skills.”

“Thirteen?” Siri asks. “They actually married you at--”

“No, no, shit, I didn’t mean that.” Lucinda laughs. “That was sixteen. I kept him off me until I was eighteen, but I spent three years before that learning how to be Legion. Spent three years ‘unlearning’ being tribal.” She makes finger quotes around “unlearning.” “You never really unlearn it. Just learn how to be Legion-tribal instead of you-tribal.” Lucinda looks down at her hands, picks at the plastic wrap. “Maybe town people like you don’t know the difference, it’s all tribals, right? Legion’s just one big tribe made up of a lot of smaller tribes.” She snorts. “Shit, you should see some of the stupid arguments that break out, off the front lines. No one forgets their tribe, if they were born to it. Keep the disagreements, if they remember them. Watched grown-ass men get into fistfights over stupid shit like how you’re supposed to tie your belt.”

“The Legion isn’t as unified as they want to think they are,” Siri agrees. 

“Never saw us women fight over anything like that, though.” Lucinda balls the plastic wrap up in one hand, tosses it at the trashcan halfway across the room. “Had one woman come after me because I fucked around with her husband, but that was reasonable. Would’ve gotten us two in trouble, if I’d been caught by someone higher up the chain of command. He would’ve gotten off scot-free, probably. You know how it goes.” She rubs at the injection site on her thigh. “The Med-X is working. Leg still hurts, but I don’t feel like screaming.”

“Good, good. Do you know about any family history of addiction?” Siri rests her hand, palm-up, on her thigh. After a moment, Lucinda rests her palm on Siri’s.

Lucinda shakes her head at Siri’s question. “My mother was a poorer-than-Lonestar-dirt tribal, and I was born three days after she fled her tribe. I don’t have a family history of anything, let alone chem use.”

“So I’m just going to have to be careful. You’ll tell me if you start to need it to function?”

“I will,” Lucinda agrees. “I’d rather not be chained to chems, believe me.”

They’re both quiet for a minute.

“Is there more food over there? I’m still hungry.”

“There is. I’ll get it for you. What would you like?”

“ _Nopales_ , if there are any over there. My babysitter-” she snorts and grins, wrinkles her nose as she winks at Siri; _some of the women give the men unflattering nicknames and you must NEVER use them in earshot of the men_ , Siri’s first mentor’s voice echoes; immediately she feels the drop in the pit of her stomach, _fear_ ; lets go of Lucinda’s hand, “-likes them a lot, and since I’ve been gone for god knows how long, he might’ve eaten them all.”

“He said you’ve been gone for almost two weeks.” She manages to stop herself before she says ‘ma’am’ like she's been taught, but Lucinda grabs her arm as she tries to stand. She tries not to look too panicked, tries not to go stiff, tries not to default into what she’s heard other women call _slave-mode_.

“I said something,” Lucinda says. “I’m sorry I’ve made you uncomfortable.” Lucinda seems to realize she has a death grip on Siri’s arm, lets go and settles her hands back in her lap. “I’m sorry,” she says again. “I, ah, forgot.” She makes a vague gesture at Siri’s arm before she looks away. “I said something that made you uncomfortable,” she repeats, trying to get back on track.

“You call the men names, and I--what if he was here?”

“Then I wouldn’t call him names,” Lucinda replies with a shrug. “Half the time, that’s all we can do. Most of the men think it’s a cute sort of half-assed resistance. ‘Haha look at the pathetic woman, all she can do is call us names, what an impotent and useless fight she’s putting up.’ You can’t do it around all of them, but Strix can’t do anything to me if I call him names. He’s stuck with me until this whole ordeal is over. He can't even do anything to me when this is over, because I’m not his, and I’m not community property. He’s got no rank on me.” Lucinda scowls at the wall, then her face softens as she looks back to Siri. “But I understand it makes you uncomfortable. I won’t do it again.”

“Thank you.” And that eases the knot in her chest. “I’ll go look for--” she lets it sit there. She can speak pidgin Spanish, but it doesn’t roll off her tongue the way it rolls off Lucinda’s--the way any language seems to roll off her tongue.

“Thank you, Siri.” Lucinda ducks her head. She looks back up at Siri after a moment, twists her hands into the blanket, looks away again. “It means a lot to me, that you came to help. I know you had to, once Strix asked you to, but. I still appreciate that you’ve cared this much. That you haven’t just--that you’ve actually bothered to offer help. Past what you had to.”

“Of course.” 

***

Lucinda’s flat on the bed again, her head in Siri’s lap. She fell asleep hours ago--the moon is high enough in the sky that Siri can see it around the rock Strix set over the grate, to keep her from getting out--but now she’s half awake again, her fever spiking high enough that Siri is just trying to keep her from frying alive. She’s sacrificed water to scraps of cloth, trying to keep Lucinda cool. She’s hoping Strix doesn’t come back too soon, because she has Lucinda stripped to bare minimum clothes, as much of a violation as it feels. Less clothing, less insulation, keeps her cooler. Lucinda is fidgeting, whining, gritting her teeth when she moves her leg. She’s muttering, too, words so quiet she can barely be heard. 

When she opens her eyes, she can’t be seeing anything--they’re unfocused, her pupils dilated wide even for the dim light of the bunker--but she looks toward Siri.

“Have they hurt you?” she asks, presses her hand against Siri’s cheek at an awkward angle. Her hand is cold, in contrast to the rest of her, and damp with sweat. “Have they hurt you?” she repeats again, tone more urgent, when Siri doesn’t respond.

“No,” she replies.

“But your eye,” Lucinda replies, moves her hand to the other side of Siri’s face--even more awkward that before-- “It’s swollen, and you have a bruise like, like someone hit you. Have they hurt you?”

She’s getting more agitated.

“Only once,” Siri tells her. “It’s alright.”

“No it’s not,” Lucinda replies. “Who did it? Who hurt you?”

“Some legionary,” and she knows his name, but Lucinda doesn’t have to. She remembers Lucinda’s promise, weeks ago-- “I’ll get him for you,” and that grin, all teeth and very little joy--and doesn’t want her to follow through. Doesn’t want Lucinda carrying responsibility for that, on top of everything else. She’s had worse than this, doesn’t need Lucinda to do anything.

“Tell me,” Lucinda begs. “He deserves to hurt.”

“Go back to sleep,” Siri tells her. “You need sleep.”

“But you’re hurt,” Lucinda insists.

“So are you, and worse than me.”

‘I’ve had worse,” Lucinda replies, which is a blatant lie and clear evidence she shouldn’t be allowed out until the fever-delirium has broken.

“You can’t walk. I'll tell you when you can walk, alright?” And now she’s reduced to bargaining with her fever-delirious, mostly-naked, violence-inclined patient.

“Okay.”

Well, at least she agreed to that.

***

Both women are asleep when he returns--Lucinda on the bed, a sheet pulled up over her, Siri at the desk in the opposite corner, her head pillowed on her arms. He retreats to the other room with the hot plate and the cooking pot, to let Lucinda sleep. He returns momentarily and shakes Siri awake.

“I have the things to make hydra,” he tells her.

“Yes, sir,” she manages to mumble as she drags herself out of her chair. She got half an hour of sleep, maybe, once Lucinda’s fever broke and she could be left alone, and she’d been up almost a full day before that half hour. Now she’s awake again, eyes bleary and head full of cotton. Hopefully she can sleep later. Hopefully she doesn’t burn this first batch.

Strix follows her back to the other room, sits on one of the bunks as she looks over the bag of ingredients he brought her. Most of it looks fine, though the gallon jug of nightstalker blood seems a little worse for wear. She’s careful around the radscorpion stingers, even with the points filed off--how thoughtful--the toxin packs a nasty punch.

Once the base is well on its way to cooking, she starts chopping the fungus up with the knife Strix provides her. When it’s been chopped small enough, she tosses it into the pot and waits for it to simmer.

“She’s doing well?” Strix asks.

“As well as can be expected under the circumstances.”

“Has she woken up?”

“For about an hour, earlier, then she fell back asleep. Woke up with a fever a few hours ago, I only just got the fever to break and her to go back to sleep. I’ll probably try to remove any more gangrene now, while she’s asleep.” She keeps her eyes on the pot. Doesn’t want to meet his eyes, in case he takes that as a challenge. Lucinda can get away with pushing back--like she said, Strix has no rank on her--but she can’t. Has to play it safe, stay obedient. 

“Is she going to pull through?” His voice is low, soft. Afraid. _Caring_. It makes her stomach twist, because she knows what this _concern for a woman_ turns into, with Legionaries. _Deserving. Demanding_. Hopes it won’t happen to Lucinda--doesn’t see how it could, she has a _husband_ , is already claimed by someone else, which leaves a sick feeling in her stomach as she thinks of Lucinda’s cold, sweaty hand on her cheek, and the fury in her eyes.

“Only time will tell,” she replies, fights her voice around the lump in her throat.

“Can’t you guess?” he asks. “You’re a doctor, aren’t you?”

“Yes, but I wasn’t trained for these conditions.” Tries to keep her voice even. “Her infection is serious, and I don’t have the tools or the medications to ensure she survives. She’s healthy and strong, but she’s seriously hurt. If I keep up this treatment, and her health keeps up, she should survive. But if anything at all changes, there’s a good chance she won’t.”

“Then make sure nothing changes,” Strix orders. Like it’s that simple, like bodies aren’t more complicated than even pre-War scientists could figure out completely. Like she can magically make Lucinda’s condition stabilize. 

“I’m trying, sir,” she replies. Tries to look like she's cowering appropriately, in awe of his Might As A Legionary. “I’m trying my best.”

“Right,” he says, and she hopes it’s not sarcastic.

***

Most of her left shin is puckered scar tissue, ugly and tight. It’s whole, though, and she watches as Siri builds up a plaster cast around the gauze underlayer covering her still-broken leg. 

“You’ll need to stay off it as much as possible--a crutch or a cane would be best. You likely won’t be able to walk very much or very well for a long while. That’s alright. Take the time you need to get to places and do things.”

“I will,” Lucinda agrees, and Siri knows that’s a platitude, Lucinda doesn’t slow down for anything, so she’ll undoubtedly be carried back into the fort one of these days, with an impacted fracture of her tibia and fibula and an apologetic smile.

‘You better,” Siri murmurs, finishes the first layer of plaster. Lucinda snorts and laughs. “I don't want you back in the fort for medical treatment for at least two weeks, do you hear me? And never again for this leg.”

“I guess I’ll just have to get another doctor to look at it if I break it again.”

“You.” Siri pauses, checks to make sure Strix is still over in the room. She leans up on her knees, presses one finger into Lucinda’s chest, narrows her eyes. “You had _better_ not break your leg again, or so help me god I’ll break the other one too.”

Lucinda gives up on the shit-eating grin, then, and bursts into laughter. Siri giggles too, settles back on her heels, starts spreading more plaster onto the cast.

“What are you laughing about in there?” Strix calls from the other room, and Aphra whines.

“None of your fuckin’ business,” Lucinda replies, reaches out a hand to touch her fingertips to the top of Siri’s head. “Not laughing about you or at you, so you can keep yourself over there.”

“He won’t…” Siri keeps her voice low. She nods at the door.

“Not if he knows what’s good for him,” Lucinda growls. She curls her fists into the bedsheets.

They pass the rest of the casting in silence, and when they’re done Lucinda calls for Strix, who’s to escort Siri back to the Fort.

Lucinda can’t watch them go.

Aphra stay in the bunker, jumps up on the bed to lay along Lucinda’s side, her head on Lucinda’s thigh, Lucinda’s hand behind her ears.

“What’re we gonna do, dog, huh?” Lucinda asks. Aphra looks up at her, doesn’t move her chin, just her ears. “We gonna limp around the wasteland like an old lady? Looks like.”

Aphra whines and thumps her tail on the bedspread.

“Yeah, me too,” Lucinda sighs.

***

“If we’re going to do this, I have rules.”

“Shoot.” His arm on her shoulders.

“When you touch me, it’s because I ask you to.”

“I can do that.” His arm _off_ her shoulders.

“If I tell you stop, you stop, no questions asked.”

“Okay.”

“And you don’t own me.”

“I know.”

“No, you don’t. You’ll figure it out though.”

Look away. Press shoulders together. Watch the sun rise over the Colorado.

***

Strix offers to carry her out of the bunker, all her things in tow--they’ve eaten most of the food and drunk most of the water, at least, so most of what they’re carrying is her haul from the Sierra Madre. She’s kept the gold bars carefully stashed at the bottom of her pack, where he hasn’t seen them, underneath the empty ammo cartons and extra pair of pants. She loads the rest of her things into the bag, to cover up the extra weight. He doesn’t need to know. They’re her insurance, in case things really go tits-up sometime soon. He’s a man, his dick is his insurance.

She settles her backpack onto her back, and he settles her onto his back--she has a flash of memory, of being carried this way when she was young enough she wasn’t expected to walk all day and keep up with the adults; Old Eagle picking her up and settling her on her back, feet wrapped around her hips and arms around her neck--before he climbs up the ladder. He carried Aphra up, already, after rigging her a sort-of-backpack, so she can carry things too. She doesn't seem to mind it, which makes Lucinda suspect she’s not one of the husband’s. He would never have trained a dog to _carry things_ like a _pack brahmin_ , never mind a dog is cheaper and easier to feed.

They skirt Nelson wide--thank god, she doesn’t want the Legionaries there to see her like this, a cane, maybe, or a crutch, but not being carried like she's a damn five year old _child_ \--and Strix keeps off the road so his steps are softer. She appreciates it.

They reach the shack near sundown, and he settles her on the ground by the door while he goes inside to look for a crutch. He comes back with a sturdy stick and a heavy knife instead, and she figures she’ll just have to make do with a homemade cane.

He cooks--badly--while she begins to carve. He dropped her bag of jerky next to her--maybe he’s softened up on the cannibalism, then; huh--and then built a fire a little ways down the hill. Sets two gecko steaks on a wire rack over the fire, wrapped a few ears of maize in foil and buries them in the coals to roast. When it’s all done cooking he comes to get her, carries her down the hill--‘princess carry’ her mother would have called it, one of his arms under her knees and the other behind her back, same as he carried her to the bed first day back--sets her at the fireside. He forks her steak over onto her tin plate, unrolls the corn and sets that on her plate too.

The maize is burnt on one side, and the gecko tastes more of char than meat, but it’s food and she figures she’ll throw him a bone. She doesn’t complain.

Sees him wrinkle his nose when he gets a particularly burnt piece of meat, though.

***

She’s up before dawn--her leg _hurts_ , even just sleeping--and she hobbles out to the water tank on her new cane. She ends up hoisting herself onto the edge, grate digging into her ass as she watches the sunrise. She hears Strix wander out as the sun comes up, hears him throw something for Aphra, hears Aphra bark and come charging back.

“It’s beautiful, isn't it?” he asks her, nudging the bucket under the water spigot and turning it so the flow picks up from a drip to a little more than a trickle.

“Mmm,” she agrees. She can hear him swallow, sees his hands tuck up to his diaphragm to fidget.

“Just like you,” he finally manages.

“Don’t,” she sighs. “Just...don’t.”

“Why?” he asks.

“I don’t want to sleep with you now.”

“Why not? How come you slept with the guy who shot you?”

“Because he had information I wanted.” She presses the heels of her hands into the grate, grinds her teeth together. She wants a cigarette. Fuck, she wants a whole damn pack, all at once. Would sure as hell keep her mouth busy, would mean she wouldn’t have to justify not wanting him now.

“But he shot you!”

“Yeah, and Legionaries killed pretty much everyone I ever knew. Don’t see why I should excuse that.”

“I didn’t do that.”

“No, you didn’t.” Lucinda agrees. He can't see the forest for the trees. Still has that luxury, as a legionary. “I’m not interested in you right now,” she says again, slowly. Makes sure he gets every word.

“Okay,” he says, and he sounds so defeated. She would feel guilty, but she doesn’t trust him to leave it alone, so she doesn’t let herself feel bad. And it’s her choice, isn’t it? Since she actually has a choice, she can exercise it. That’s a rule she’s held onto, through all this shit. If she has a choice, it’s _her_ choice.

He finishes filling the bucket, refills Apra's water bowl and hauls the water inside to wash.

Lucinda sits and watches the sun come up. Periodically pats at her pockets for the pack of cigarettes that’s in her coat, back inside.

Her leg itches.

***

“What the hell are we doing in Goodsprings?” he asks her as she hobbles up the road, past the sign and the saloon, toward the cemetery on the hill.

“Birds,” she grunts.

“Yeah, there’s ravens all over the place here,” Strix agrees. Shades his eyes, looks into the sky, sees one of said ravens wheeling above the town.

“I’m going to get one,” Lucinda continues. Still short words, hard to walk and talk and be in pain all at the same time. She had scoped out the nest on top of the water tower, a few days after she had woken up. It was a breeding pair, no eggs yet, because it was too early in the season. Now, it’s past egg laying time, and even the latest eggs should have hatched by now.

She only needs one bird.

A small one.

No feathers needed, no flight, nothing.

Just alive.

“You’re going to get a bird?” Strix asks.

“Yeah,” she agrees.

“Why? And _how_?”

“Because I have to, and I,” she pauses, settles her weight onto her good leg, points at the water tower with her cane, “am going to climb that and steal a baby.”

“No,” Strix tells her. “You’re going to get yourself killed if you try that.”

“Try and stop me,” she replies. She puts the motorcycle helmet she took off one of the raiders earlier in the day, snugs the strap under her chin. Shakes her shoulders loose, and hobbles as quickly as she can. Strix can still walk faster than her, the bastard. Fuckin’ bear trap, fuckin’ Legion healing methods. He tries to stand in front of her, as she starts up the hill, but she shoves into his chest, keeps going.

“I’m going to tell Siri what you’re doing.”

“Fine,” she replies. Siri’ll chew her out, but she’s not planning on breaking her leg, or hurting herself anymore. She’s climbed more dangerous things than a water tower, for stupider reasons.

She leans her cane against the concrete block, buttons her coat across her front. It’s deathclaw leather, it’s not like a _bird_ is going to be able to get through it. She tucks her braids down the front of it, turns her collar up and tucks it beneath the bottom of her motorcycle helmet.

She wedges her bad foot onto the first support bar, swings her arms up in a long stretch. Hurts like she stepped in the bear trap again, fuck, but she has to keep going. Good foot, then, on a wire even with her thigh. Unwedge her bad foot, haul herself up, move one hand at a time higher. Bad foot on wire--only even with her knee this time, because she can’t stretch that far--haul herself up, swear some at the pain, move her hands, repeat the process.

Strix stands below, staring up at her.

“Thought you were gonna stop me?” she calls down to him. She’s three body-lengths up the tower, well above his head and well above the ground. She’s glad heights don’t bother her.

“I’m not following you up,” he calls back. “I happen to like my spine in one piece.”

She laughs at that, begins climbing again.

The birds don’t see her as a threat until she makes it to the tank, when they set up a racket. She braces herself, slows down her going so she can make sure she’s steady when they inevitably start dive-bombing her.

It doesn’t take long, before one is buffeting her head with its wings, claws scrabbling at her helmet. It’s an awful noise, but it’s more disorienting than anything.

There’s two of them going at it, by the time she crests the top of the tower. She lays herself flat on it--harder to slide off, with the extra friction--and surveys the nest.

Three babies, all three of them silent and hunkered as their parents scream and tackle her. One of them hits her shoulder hard enough she suspects she’ll have a bruise, but at least it’s not her cane arm.

The smallest fledgling is obvious, half the size of its siblings. She carefully scoots her fingers under its butt, cradles it in her hand It doesn’t make a noise, doesn’t move. One of the parents lands on her arm, tries to peck at her wrist, but she’s wearing her birding glove, so it doesn't have any effect besides maybe inflicting another bruise.

She shoves the parent off with her other hand, kneels to tuck the baby to her chest. Settles it in her breast pocket, after a moment-- it should rest in her hood, but she’s still being attacked, and she’ll have time once she’s back on the ground.

The trip down is longer than the trip up, because the parents don’t let up until she’s made it back into town. Strix keeps his distance from her, afraid to be associated with her by the ravens.

“Are you hurt?” he asks, as they settle against the sun-warm shingling of the side of schoolhouse. Lucinda has the baby raven cupped in her hands. It’s starting to cheep, and she’s chewing a bit of jerky. As Strix watches, she spits the jerky out into her hands, then carefully lifts it to the baby’s beak. The baby horfs it down. 

“I’m fine,” she tells him, giant grin on her face as she watches the raven swallow. She bites off another tidbit of jerky and starts chewing again.

They stay like that for a long two hours, Lucinda eventually sliding down the wall to sit as she feeds the bird, her bad leg stretched out in front and her good leg tucked under, humming as she chews.

It’s not a song he recognizes, but when she accidentally starts using words, he knows it’s about how, if she had wings like bird, she would fly across the river and be free of all her troubles, and it’s only a few more days until her hopes come true.

They make it back to the shack before nightfall, and Lucinda builds her bird a nest in her coat hood, weaves twigs together as she hums. She settles the bird into it, lines the nest with locks of hair--he tries not to think about it--and feathers. She feeds it one last time--a cricket she catches in the corner of the shack--before she extinguishes the lights for the night.

He can hear her hum as he falls asleep, the same song as earlier, its ending bleeding into its beginning so he’s not sure if it ever really ends.

***

She’s still grinning as Lucullus takes them up the river to the Fort. She’s taken her seat on the shitty wooden crate-seat, her bad leg stretched out. The bird is quiet--peeped the whole way here, settled into her hood, quit as soon as they got onto the water.

The trip up the hill is long and slow, but Lucinda left her cane back in Cottonwood Cove, stashed so they wouldn’t see her need it. She has her teeth gritted as she drags herself up the hill, Strix close behind.

Siri sees them before they get to Caesar’s tent, with their report. She stays behind her jury-rigged counter, aggressively wiping out a drinking glass. Lucinda hobbles over. “Are you using a crutch or a cane?” Siri asks, eyes flicking over to Strix.

“I am,” Lucinda agrees. “Didn’t want _them_ ,” she doesn’t have to specify, “to see me with it. It’s back in the cove.”

“You need to use it as much as possible.”

“But I need to stay useful too,” Lucinda replies, voice low, consonants swallowed so only Siri can hear her. She leans heavily on the cinderblock stack holding up this end of the counter. “I’m sorry, I want to, but I-” She looks away. Lets the silence hang.

“I know,” Siri agrees after a moment, looks the same direction as Lucinda.

They stand in silence for a moment, before there’s a tiny, insistent _peep_ from Lucinda’s hood.

“What’s that?” Siri asks, eyes narrowing.

“A bird!” Lucinda replies, turns around. She’s beaming as she tugs her braid out of the way so Siri can see the tiny baby bird, nestled in a handmade nest.

“How did you get a bird?” She mentioned getting a bird, didn’t she? In the context that it sounded like a rite of passage?

Lucinda goes stiff, carefully turns around.

“I, uh.” She pauses, fidgets with the ends of her sleeves. “I climbed the water tower outside Goodsprings and stole it.”

“You what?” she tries to keep her voice down, but--climbed a water tower! “I told you to stay off your leg!”

“I have been! As much as I can. But I had to do this.” She reaches into her pocket, pulls out a slice of jerky, starts chewing it. “It’s--it’s a tribal thing,” she says, dropping her voice even lower. “It’s not Legion, it’s something I was born to. Sometimes you just...have to do things. I can tell you more some other time.” She does look apologetic, at least. “Caesar wants to see me, I’ll talk to you later?”

“Sure,” Siri agrees. There are a few other women in the Fort, today, but they won’t mind. They’ll understand it. The women always do.

Lucinda smiles at her.

***

The sniper had come along, after she had made a joke at Strix’s expense.

“He’s no good with a gun,” she’d said, laughed. “Better at knifing things. Could use a sniper.”

He’d grunted and tagged along as they hauled their way up to New Vegas.

She’s got a few hundred caps tucked carefully inside her coat, her bird well fed and hidden under a few folds of cloth so she’ll stay quiet. They’ll be going to the Ultra-Luxe, and while somewhere like the Lucky 38 wouldn’t care--no one left to care, now--and somewhere like the Atomic Wrangler would tolerate it--better an easily-fed flightless bird than a belligerent drunk--she doubts somewhere with a reputation for being _fancy_ will appreciate a “pet” on their premises. She's not leaving the bird behind, though. Not the way Strix has to leave Aphra on the Lucky 38’s steps, panting and whining as the three humans head further down the strip.

Strix and Boone stick close behind her as she waltzes past the man in the cowboy hat--muttering something about his son disappearing while he was here--and the card tables--flick of cards and clatter of the roulette wheels--and the exchange counter--some gossip about Mary on the third floor and her impending divorce from her cheating husband--toward the information desk in the back.

She’s put her rumors together, knows what’s happening here. Waves for Strix and Boone to sit in the chairs in the recessed bit of the floor while she goes to talk to the masked man behind the counter.

She knows what she’s going to do, when they finish speaking.

She doesn’t belong here, not by a long shot, but she's here to get them out of their predicament. She’s hyperaware of her grungy dress and dusty shitkickers, her heavy leather coat and her greasy hair. She waves for the two men to follow her, and she waltzes into the restaurant, full of women in pretty-patterned dresses, men in sharp-shined shoes, people with delicate dress canes in hand, while she’s leaning on her chunk of wood and hoping it doesn’t slip on the tile. The guard patrolling the kitchen is easy enough to convince she’s here on business--she is, isn’t she?

She eventually finds the right freezer, unlocks it. Lies to the kid about who did this--kid’s stupid enough to believe she doesn’t know--sends him upstairs with Strix.

“Boone, you stay here with me,” she says, as Strix heads for the stairs, escorting the kid. “Want to look around some.”

“Creepy, down here,” Boone replies, but doesn’t leave the room.

She goes to look through the bottles of booze on the shelf, waits until his back is turned. Comes up silent, soft on the flats of her feet, even with the cast, hits him hard so he drops like a sack of grain.

There's no one around--distant whine-roar of flamers, buzz of fluorescent lights, drip of a faucet, someone's footsteps far down the hallway, receding--so she grabs him by the ankles and hauls him back toward the freezer. Siri’d have a heart attack, if she saw. Has to kick floor mats out of the way, so she doesn’t scuff him up too bad, suspects Mortimer or his chef wouldn’t appreciate it much. Dumps him in, latches the door, re-locks it.

Thinks about another first recon sniper, dead.

She gets up to Mortimer when the clock reads half past six, tells him he has his meal. He thanks her profusely--presses a handful of caps into her palm--and she goes out to meet up with Strix and the kid again. She lies through her teeth, says she doesn’t know who did it. Blames the NCR, where she can. Undermine their own people's faith in them.

When Gunderson--that’s his name--is dealt with, she wanders over to one of the couches. Carefully arranged herself so her hood--and her bird--isn’t crushed. Presses her knees together, nest her ankles delicately together, tucks her dress around herself. Watches the blackjack table, picks up the rules quickly enough she considers playing a few rounds while she waits. She thought she heard the cashier offer to exchange chips for denarii. She wonders if that’s actually any good for business.

At five to seven, the few members of the White Gloves that are wandering around in the lobby disappear toward the restaurant. She follows them back, exchanges a handful of caps for a handful of chips. Returns to her seat, watches a few more rounds of blackjack.

It’s half-past when the members of the society return. She stands then, nods at Strix to keep his place.

She finds Marjorie where she was, asks her to support Caesar.

She seems to think cannibalism is supported by the Legion, which is patently untrue, but it’s support they're going to need. Caesar will stomp out the cannibalism shortly enough. No room for under the Legion.

She tells Strix that the White Glove Society will support them, and he nods. They take their leave of the casino.

***

Lucinda disappears again, when they’re poking around the crashed satellite in the middle of the night. She had said she wanted to get a look at it, since it looked like it was a projector, but that it was also timed. There’s a flash of blue, and she’s gone. Aphra is barking at the satellite, and he’s panicking. She’s just-- _gone_ , no inkling of where she could be.

He sets up camp.

He only waits for two days before she returns, blue halo around her head, some cartoonish gun in one hand.

She can walk, again, stride easily past him now that he’s gotten used to having to slow down for her.

“What happened? Where did you go?” he asks, as they skirt Nipton and head back to their shack.

“Robots,” she replies. “Fucking. Pre-war scientist brains in robots and they _kidnapped_ me.”

“What?” he asks, gives her a look.

“Robots. Kidnapped. Stuck in an autodoc, had my spine and heart and brain removed, it fixed my leg so I don’t limp anymore.” She drops her backpack, jams the gun into it and replaces it with her usual rifle. “Got them back because I was angry.” Hefts her backpack on again. “Killed them all because I was pissed. Turned them into little puddles of goop and piles of brain and electronics.”

He can see the muscle twitch in her jaw, and she doesn’t look at him for the rest of the walk back, no matter what questions he asks. 

It’s an interesting look for her--coat sweeping back, bird’s nest in her coat hood, hair loose and waving, haloed in blue. Looks like something out of a myth, if he lets himself get sappy. Mars, incarnate in a woman.

He suspects she’d punch him if he ever said that, though.

***

The Brotherhood of Steel is happy enough to let her in--even if they take her armor, clap a collar on her that has her eyeing the walls, looking for speakers; has her digging her nails into her opposite palm. They make Strix stand near the door, also stripped to his underclothes, a collar on his neck.

“Hang my coat up with the hood like that.” She points as they nearly dump her bird out of her nest. “The bird, watch the bird. Make sure she stays there.”

The people in the big metal suits oblige, hang her coat up on the corner of a crate. The bird starts up peeping, and Lucinda makes an asking gesture at her coat. They eye her, but one of them nods. She digs out a bit of jerky, chews it up to feed the bird. They just stand and watch.

When the peeping stops, she turns around.

“Sorry about that,” she replies. “You know how infants are.” Gives them a smile. Make it a joke. She thinks she hears one of them snort, but they direct her--and Strix--through the door and down the stairs.

She talks with the leader of the Brotherhood, and he has her go shoot an NCR ranger, in one of the other bunkers. It’s no trouble, she feels no guilt. One less NCR flunkie in the world.

From there out, he has her running errands--talk to scouts, bring back tapes, find dead soldiers and their holotapes, place a transmitter in the top of the Black Mountain array. Strix grumbles about it, but Aphra is more than happy to chase the sticks Lucinda throws for her. Chases the scorpions, too, and growls at the deathclaw in the crater on Black Mountain before Lucinda fells it with three shots to the face.

***

They don’t notice her lift the keycards off them, she’s careful of that. She’s not a pickpocket, not by any stretch of the imagination, but she ran enough trials with that damn stealth suit that she knows what she’s doing. Takes the power armor training happily--no use in wasting knowledge, even if these people are going to die soon. It’s heavy, and unwieldy, and honestly she prefers her coat, but she’s fairly certain she could kill a deathclaw with a ballistic fist this way. Hell, maybe she could do it with a set of brass knuckles. She’s not going to try it, but maybe she could.

The scribe and the kid wander around the room with the VR pods, neither speaking to her. She’s a tourist, here, just poking around. She tries to keep an appropriately interested-but-unintelligent look on her face. Waits until their backs are turned to generate the self destruct password, then has to wait again to key it into the self-destruct terminal. She tells Strix to head up without her, before she punches the code in. They hadn’t given him training, because he was her partner, but not the one who helped them. A package deal, not the main attraction. She sends her bird up with him. Nowhere to keep her, in power armor. No hood to rest her nest in. She’ll have to fix that, if she’s going to make a habit of power armor.

She considers it, when they start shooting.

They move faster than her, their armor like a second skin to them while it just slows _her_ down. She can feel the buzz of the servos, all down into her hands. Can’t stop long enough to see if they make her hands shake, though she wouldn’t be surprised.

Takes one laser to the shoulder--feels the heat through the armor, though no burn--and a plasma blast to the middle of her back--force sends her staggering, feels the heat, the indeterminate plasma wobble, but no pain and no burn like it penetrated--but nothing else. Moves too fast, ducks to quick behind corners, up the stairs too quickly. She feels the rumble as she slams the door open, staggers up the stairs, breathing hard.

Feels the ground shake as she exits the bunker, sees Strix standing thirty feet away, her coat and bird in one hand and Aphra’s ruff in the other.

There’s a dent in the earth, when the rumbling stops and she can turn to look. The doorway still stands, but the hill behind it is caving in.

“They won’t be a problem, then,” she says, reaches up to rub at the Brotherhood of Steel insignia painted on her pauldron. “We can report back to Caesar.”

***

Siri had marvelled at her leg--still mostly scar tissue, but the muscle in shape and the bone mostly painless. She had bristled, at first, at the fact she wasn’t wearing the cast, but Lucinda had explained it, out of earshot of the legionaries. Robots, teleportation, a working and fully-upgraded auto-doc. Siri had stared at her, through most of the explanation, until she had tugged her shirt down past her collarbones, where the surgical scar started. Shrugged off her coat, too, shown off the scar that started at the base of her head and ran beneath her collar.

“They covered up the brain ones pretty well,” she admits, removes her hat, unbraids her hair, tugs it aside in places to show the hairline scars. “But they couldn’t cover up the heart or spine ones.”

“That’s more advanced medical technology that even pre-war scientists had,” Siri murmurs, her hands twitching. Lucinda sees the way her chest caves, when she breathes, knows the want that does that to a person. Pretends she doesn’t see it, because that’s polite. Wonders if she has a medical book, back at the shack, if Siri would even have time to read it, with all her duties and so many men around. Can she even read? If she was going to be a doctor, she must be able to read.

“They were pre-war scientists in floating robots,” Lucinda had agreed. “They’d had two hundred years to--do shit, for lack of a better term.” Siri had laughed at that. “All sorts of shit, with brains and armor and dogs and--and--robots.” She’s stumbling over her words, now unable to explain the wonder of the Big Empty. She hated it, sure, but the things there were _fantastic_ in ways she can’t explain to people. She doesn’t want them in her, or on her, or really anywhere near her--but a platoon of cyberdogs? protectrons? a stealth suit that auto-injects stimpaks? an auto-doc capable of successful brain surgery?

She imagines the terminals she didn’t bother to access, full of so much information.

The Legion can’t have it, because the Legion does alright with steel and blood and promises.

But Siri.

Siri could do so much with it.

So many of the women could.

“I wish I could show you,” Lucinda murmurs, voice just loud enough for Siri to hear. She looks away, determinedly studies a particularly dark rock. “There were things there that you would have loved.”

“Thank you,” Siri says, looks away in the other direction, toward the roasting brahmin, along the wall. “When--when we have time--can I ask you questions?”

“Sure,” Lucinda agrees, smiles small and careful. Tonight then, maybe. If there’s time, and the men stay far enough away. “Would you watch my bird while I go talk with Caesar? She needs fed soon. Just feed her whatever you have around that won’t be missed. Only needs chewed if it’s particularly tough, she’s fine with most meat and fruit.”

“Of course,” Siri agrees, and Lucinda nods. Walks around the back of the tent, folds her coat up so that the nest is upright and out of the way.

Goes up to talk to Caesar.

She’s running, when she leaves, Strix behind her. She doesn’t stop to wave, or even to get her coat, just sprints on toward the gate.

Siri worries.

She’s back, seven hours later, an old-fashioned leather doctor’s bag in one hand and a set of what appears to be surgical scrubs in the other. She nods at Siri as she goes by, this time, but doesn't stop and doesn’t say anything. Strix ignores her, as always, just keeps his eyes on Caesar’s tent.

***

The Fort is quieter than usual. It’s not definite--the boys are still running outside the front gate, the legionaries still train in the yard, yelling and laughing, people wander to and from the counter, Antony’s dogs bark and whine and growl--but there's something _off_ , like everyone is waiting for something. Everyone saw Lucinda running, everyone saw what she carried. Everyone’s heard the rumors that Caesar is sick. This is proof.

Lucinda stays in Caesar’s tent until well after sundown--four hours, by Siri’s count. She feeds the bird every time it makes a noise, nearly hourly. Just bits and bobs, nothing big. She’s worried it’ll be missed.

When Lucinda emerges, she’s quiet. She comes to Siri’s counter, sits on one of the stools. Strix looks at her, then goes in the other direction, toward the legionary tents.

Lucius emerges a minute later.

“The Courier has cured Caesar,” he proclaims, as people turn to look. “She has delivered him from death’s door.”

She’s The Courier, when it suits them, then. She knows it, settles her elbows beneath the edge of the table but presses her fingertips to the splintery wood. Doesn’t look as the cheer goes up. No one comes over to congratulate her. They cheer for Caesar, not for the woman who saved him.

The camp dies down in the next hour, as legionaries head off to sleep. Siri stays up, wiping dishes and putting them away. Lucinda retrieves her bird, chews up slices of jerky from a wax-paper wrap in her coat pocket, spits them out for the bird to eat. Waits until most of the men are gone before she beckons Siri over, looks around before she pats the stool next to her. Siri carefully sits.

“It was a brain tumor,” she says, voice low. “It was--it wasn’t big, but it was there, and I--I nearly held his brain in my hands, Siri, I could’ve--” she chokes up, then, stops talking and gently runs a finger over her bird’s head. The bird is settling down into her nest, down fluffing out as night cements its hold on the sky. “I could’ve done anything.”

They’re both quiet, then, for long minutes until there’s a yell for the changing of shifts.

“He’ll live,” Lucinda says. “He’ll live. I could have killed him, but he’ll live.”

“Where did you learn to do brain surgery?” Siri asks, instead of confronting what Lucinda keeps repeating. She knows that Caesar is better than Lanius, that Lanius would have them all crucified for reasons they couldn’t control.

“I--I read a lot. I learned the structures, and I--I guessed.” Lucinda stares at her bird. “And I guessed right.”

“I wish I--” and Siri stops herself. “We should go to bed,” she says instead. “It’s been a long day.”

“Yeah,” Lucinda agrees. “It has been.”

***

“You’ll have to leave your boyfriend behind,” Hostilius tells her. Lucinda nods. He’s been particularly _hostile_ toward her, making a smart comment about not expecting a woman. Strix seems unhappy with this arrangement, and she doesn’t blame him--she wouldn’t mind someone else watching her back. Caesar wants the president dead, and the NCR is expecting her--or someone like her, at least. She’s still not sure if they know that _she_ exists.

Strix settles next to the campfire, Aphra at his side. Lucinda follows Hostilius out of the camp She's got a silenced sniper rifle slung over her shoulder on a strap and a Stealth Boy strapped to her wrist. She has another one in her coat pocket, in case this one goes on the fritz.

They’re closer to the dam than she thought, and she presses the button to activate the Stealth Boy as they round the corner. Hostilius saunters over to his place in the crowd, and she begins to scope the area.

Helipad on top of the visitor's center, obvious because of the extra guards stationed there. Only flat place that’s close, too. Easy goal to land at.

There’s nowhere, really, to set up with a sniper rifle down here. Behind the podium, though, back a few dozen yards, there’s a tower. There’s someone on top of the tower--ranger, by the look of his hat--but other than that small detail, it’s the perfect place to snipe someone from. They probably know it. That’s why the ranger is there.

_Non timebo homines_ , she thinks, wonders if they got the message at the ranger stations. She wrote it six times, all around the Mojave, killed cazadores and veteran rangers and comm officers in order to tell them.

She makes a beeline for the ladder up, keeps her feet quiet and flat, even when she climbs the metal ladder. No one looks her way, and she can’t hear herself except for her breathing, easy enough to lose underneath the sound of the water from the lake or the clatter of people. Can feel her heartbeat in her ears.

The ranger doesn’t notice her, and it only takes one headshot for him to go down. The gun’s still too loud, even with the silencer, but no one down below looks up. She’s not sure if they’re just that dumb, or what.

She grabs his hat off his head, replaces her hat. The Stealth Boy has held so far, but if it flickers off while she’s shooting, she’d rather have at least a half-assed disguise.

She settles herself on the floor, half-kneeling. Rests her elbow on the half-wall, lifts the scope so she can look through it. Finds Hostilius, checks out the troopers, scopes the helipad.

There aren’t as many guards as she would have expected, and she’s not sure if that’s reassuring, or frightening. What do they have hidden from her, that they only need a dozen people here?

She pulls away from the scope, waits until Hostilius looks up toward her position to turn off the Stealth Boy. She presses the back of her wrist to her forehead, extends her pinkie and pointer finger, curls the other two under. Not a recognized sign, to the Legion, but clear enough in its meaning. He nods and looks away, and she clicks the Stealth Boy back on.

She’s expecting a longer wait, for the president to arrive, but it’s only half an hour--a half hour she uses to plan her escape route--before she hears the distant whirr of a vertibird. Her knees are starting to hurt, so she’s glad for it.

There’s some blaring, patriotic-sounding music, and she waits. Holds position. Feels the buzz of her Stealth Boy through the bones in her arm, through the plastic case of her Pip-Boy.

The president talks, and talks, and talks. She doesn’t care what he says, just knows it’s something about the NCR, and the _sacrifices_ its troopers have made, how _illustrious_ its history is. 

“The treaty was more than a resolution to welcome the Desert Rangers into the republic,” he proclaims, and maybe it was. She doesn’t care. She’s been listening for the words, all she needs is for him to say that name… “It was a covenant to protect southern Nevada against Caesar's Legion--” and she pulls the trigger, sees him fall, hears the yell.

His skull is paste, though, blood and brain and skull shattered and spread across the podium in front of him. Nothing they can do about _that_.

They’re looking for her, trying to find her. They know what direction she’s in, and they're not dumb, so she begins firing.

Veteran ranger to his left, down--headshot.

Veteran ranger to his right, down--bullet to the neck.

Reload.

Ranger guarding the back of the podium, down--bullet to the thigh, shatter the bone and traumatize the femoral artery.

Reload early.

Three troopers, one after the other--shot, shot, shot, AP rounds punching through their shit armor without a problem. Stomach shots, all three.

Reload.

Another ranger, AP round to the chest.

A pair of them, figuring where she is even without being able to see her, taking aim with rifles that won’t be able to hit her. Better than laying down and dying. One a headshot, one a thigh shot.

Reload.

Wait.

There are four of them, still, up on the visitor’s center. Too far for her to make a definite shot, but close enough she's nervous to hit the ground, try to shoot them from there. She left her brush gun back at camp, with Strix--saw cazadores nearby, figured he could make better use of it than her. Would have been a good gun to have along, now, when she figures a kamikaze run at the last four of them would do her better than trying to snipe them. She does have her machete, but four rangers might be more than she’s willing to risk with just a big knife.

She manages to snipe one of them, though she misses with her first shot, dents the stone wall next to him. The other three keep moving, pacing back and forth, varying their pace so she can’t predict well enough to shoot them. They know it.

She gives up on her tower, reloads her rifle so she has three shots. Flicks on the safety, slings the rifle over her back. Swings herself over the half-wall, slides down the ladder. Grab her gun again, flicks off the safety, begins a slow walk forward. Hard to aim, while moving, but they're getting bigger in her sights.

When she’s pretty sure she can make the shot, she drops to one knee, steadies the gun, takes it. He drops, and the other two turn, triangulate. She’s already up and moving again, grateful for the stealth field. Drops another one, standing up and moving. Safeties her gun for this last one, swings it around out of the way as she unsheathes her machete and begins running at the ranger.

Have to kill at least one of them the Legion way.

He doesn’t know she’s there until she’s got her arm around his neck, drags his head back and swings the machete into the base of his neck, just below her arm. He gargles and slumps to the ground, bleeding out. She sheathes the machete, turns back to the road. Leaves the bodies to rot in the afternoon sun. Stops, just around the corner, returns and strips President Kimball of his suit. Leaves him in his undershirt and briefs, but folds the suit jacket and shirt and tie and slacks together, holds them to her chest as she returns.

They’re splattered in blood, but it should come out easily enough. Good quality material, dark, too, so stains won't show quite so much.

A funny souvenir for herself.

Another proof for Caesar, too.

***

Shove him back on the bed. Hands on his shoulders, knees on either side of his hips.

“You--” Reach up, touch her face.

Pull his hand off, pin it to the bed.

“I’m on top.” Dog-voice, a command, an order. “Or we don’t do this.”

“Yes’m.” Mouth open, eyes adoring.

Hike up her dress, undo his shirt. Fumble his buttons. Kick off her boots.

“I’ve never--bottom.”

“You ever at all?”

Breath harsh, teeth instead of lips, hands on skin.

“Yeah.” Petulance. Insulted.

“Right.” Laughter, mocking. “Keep yourself there and you’ll do fine.”

***

“I have--one last piece of business to finish, before we take the dam,” she says. It feels like a cop-out, but she’s listened to the call on her Pip-Boy, over and over. It’s been chewing at her. “I won’t take long, and when I return, the dam will belong to you, Lord Caesar.”

“Good,” he tells her, and she excuses herself.

***

“You slept with him, and then you killed him.”

“I like how that’s your takeaway and not the fact I nuked the NCR.” She’s been smoking since she killed Ulysses, carried his body up to the top of his temple. Arranged him the way Old Raven had taught her. It’s the wrong funeral, for him, but she never learned the Twisted Hairs rites. Met a few of their women, but they’d been absorbed so long they didn’t remember or wouldn’t share, and especially not with someone who wasn’t theirs.

So she gave him the rites she knew, stripped him for the birds, left his arms at his sides. Walked back down to where Strix and Aphra were waiting. Now, walking back--

“I expected you to hurt the NCR where you could. But why kill him?”

“He tried to kill me,” she replies. That’s all it is, she says. Wasn’t the look in his eyes, as she drew the gun this morning. He saw her, knew what she was doing, closed his eyes and rolled over. Hadn’t been the way he talked, in the temple, or the way he talked as he ran his thumb over the edge of her raven tattoo. The way he had talked when she had leaned over him, rolled his braids between her fingers.

He tried to kill her.

That’s all.

Just business.

She’s carrying his coat--Old World flag on the back--and a coat she found folded in a footlocker--the bull painted on the back, the red slave X underneath it. She wonders if he just didn’t know how else to fill the space, or if that’s how he sees the Legion.

_Frumentarius_ , she thinks. _Shouldn’t have seen the Legion as a slavemaster._

_Tribal_ , another half of her replies, _nothing but slavers, then_.

She puts the thoughts to rest. No time for that, now.

Only time to take the Dam.

***

The Fort is a mess, when they return, legionaries hurrying this way and that, decani and centurions running too.

“It’s been fun,” Lucinda says. Checks her ammo pouch for bullets, settles her machete on her hip, checks for her bowie knife at her thigh.

“It has been. Do you think we’ll see each other again?” Strix squats to pet Aphra, looks up at Lucinda where she stands a few feet away.

“Probably not,” she tells him, looks away. They won’t. She’ll make sure of it. “I’ll probably be sent back to Dog Town, and you’ll be out here on the front lines.”

“Oh.” He’s sad. He’s _sad_. He didn’t learn, somewhere in between the butchering people and the murder and the assassination, her continued attempts to brush him off--he didn’t _learn_.

“Caesar wants to speak to me,” she says, starts up the hill, leaves him with his dog.

***

She grovels appropriately in front of Lanius--doesn’t look him in the eye, takes the remarks on her status as a _woman_ silently and in obedient agreement.

It’s been a long time since she’s felt so _outnumbered_ , surrounded by men who leer at her, towered over by Lanius.

_Shrike_ , Owl-Eagle’s spectral voice whispers, presses her ghost hands onto Lucinda's shoulders as she looks at Lanius. _Blood for blood, not blood for winning_.

He talks about sacrifices, and she nods. The whole tent smells like blood, like burning flesh, like fear. Her bird stays mercifully quiet.

She follows the crowd to the gate to the dam. Readies her gun, checks her machete. Still has a Stealth Boy in her pocket, just in case she needs it. She shouldn’t, not for this operation, not for open death. If she needs someone dead and they know she’s coming, though--then, perhaps.

Lanius wants General Oliver dead. That’s her job, here. She wonders if Lanius has her doing this as The Courier, or as A Woman, if he wants Oliver humiliated as much as he wants him dead.

Either way: he dies.

***

The first half of the dam is easy--a dozen and a half NCR troopers is all, and even with rifles they can’t stand against three dozen Legionaries with fire axes. She sees five Legionaries fall, doesn’t stop, keeps running. Guns five troopers down herself, doesn’t stop moving.

The airplane the Boomers raised rains fire down on the cliffs surrounding them, and she hears yelling. Hopes they’re NCR, that the Boomers haven’t turned on her.

The checkpoint is held by a decanus.

“ _Salve_ ,” she grunts at him. One of the troopers grazed her with a bullet--nothing bad, no worse than she’s had a dozen times before--but it stings. She packs healing powder over it, duct tapes a rectangle of gauze on.

“ _Salve_ ,” he returns.

“What’s the status of the dam ahead?” Rips the duct tape off the roll, shoves the roll back into her pocket.

“We’re holding, but there are snipers on the towers. Our men are trapped in the intake valves, too, and if they could be released, we could take the Dam easily.”

“Kill the snipers, release the men in the valves.” Lucinda nods. “ _In hoc signo taures vicnes_ ,” she tells him, and he nods. Grins. She grins back, swings her gun onto her back, draws her machete.

“ _Vale, amicus_.” The decanus tell her. She nods, opens the door of the checkpoint.

The sun is blinding, after the dimness of the checkpoint, and she moves herself out of the way of the troopers firing at the men following her through the checkpoint.

The snipers, first.

One is at the top of the first tower, she sees the ranger hat and the sniper rifle.There’s another, on the next tower, the control for the intake valves halfway between them.

Snipers first, so the men in the valves will be able to attack with relative impunity.

The troopers are shooting at her as she throws herself through the door to the tower, and she feels another bullet graze her side. Her coat is going to have holes in it, after this. Ugh.

She sprints up the steps--there’s only one way in or out of this tower, and if they have her cornered, they’ll use it--and hauls herself up the ladder.

“ _Ave_ ,” she growls, and machetes the ranger before he even has a chance to turn around. Hacks his head off, throws it down to the dam. The legionaries cheer, redouble their efforts.

Down the ladder, down the stairs, out onto the dam.

Run past the legionaries, toward the second tower.

He knows what’s coming, because she can see him taking aim at her.

She grabs a trooper, throws him in front of her. They’re so close she can smell his breath--gross--and he’s cross-eyed trying to look at her.

“Hello, shield,” she tells him with a grin. Digs the flat end of her machete into his stomach. “Start walking backwards, and I’ll let you live a little longer.”

He tries to yell for one of his friends, grabs for a knife, but she’s shoving him backward, and he’s stumbling to keep his feet, and the sniper miscalculates and shoots. The trooper falls and Lucinda is already off and running because now she’s covered in blood and guts, and has no human shield.

Through the door, up the stairs, up the ladder. The ranger has a knife, throws himself at her. She swings her machete, ducks his wild stabbing. Her machete gets wedged in his armor though, stuck so she has to backpedal desperately, avoiding his knife and fumbling for her backup.

She nearly goes over the edge, manages to throw herself aside at the last second as he does a hard swing down.

He’s trying to recover and she’s back on her feet, grabbing her bowie knife from its sheath sewn onto the lining of her coat. She tackles him, wrenches his head back by his hair--he’s already lost his hat--and drives the knife into the bottom of his chin. She feels the point hit his hard palate, and wrenches the knife out. Stabs him through the throat, then, too. Make sure he stays down.

She hauls herself off him, grabs her machete out of his armor. Climbs back down the ladder into the tower, draws her gun, reloads. She’s not low on ammo, and she has a break here to reload. She’ll take it.

Up next is the men in the intake pipes.

There are fewer troopers every time she goes outside, the inexorable tide of legionaries advancing further and further.

The intake tower isn’t large, and she immediately goes to the terminal. It’s easy enough to find the right option to release the valves.

A centurion clambers up out of a grate in the floor a moment later.

“What are your standing orders, centurion?” she demands, folds the keyboard back into the terminal.

“My men await in the tunnel below. I am to divide them between the dam top and the tunnels that lead to the western power plant.” He folds his hands behind his back, looks down his nose at her so he can maintain his posture.

“The power plant is what really matters. Have your men attack there. I’ll clean up the battle up here.”

“Agreed.” He nods. “The power plant is what matters.”

“If you take the plant, the battle is over.”

He nods again.

“May the Son of Mars go with you.”

“ _Vale_ ,” she agrees, as he slides back down the ladder and she exits to the dam.

***

The power plant is a bloodbath, but she sees twice the dead troopers as she sees dead legionaries. She wonders how many of the Legionaries dosed up on Psycho before they came in here. She wouldn’t be surprised if it was most of them. Only so much Caesar can do to stop the chem use.

She has to reload twice, half-empties her gun on her second reload. She’s been using Semi-Wadcutter rounds for this--her gun’s going to hate her, but they _work_.

Oliver’s compound is unguarded, the idiot. If he had a death wish, he should’ve been on the front lines, like the Legate. Better to be honest about his death wish than to hide behind a door and pretend he’s not afraid of her, or of Lanius, or of whatever other monster he’s dreamed up.

He tells her she can take his declaration back to her commander, and then he bolts up the stairs before she can get a single shot in. She can hear troopers moving around in this maze of an office.

Goes left, because she can’t go right. Ends up in a hallway that runs behind the office, comes out at the bottom of a flight of stairs up. There’s three troopers-- _boom_ , lever down, case ejected, lever up; _boom_ , lever down, case ejected, lever up; _boom_ , lever down, case ejected, lever up--and then s

he’s up the stairs, carefully staying away from the blue energy screens. She squats in the stairwell, her back to the room she just cleared, ear turned up the stairs. Reloads-- _click, click, click, click, click, click, click_ ; seven bullets to refill the magazine of eight--while she listens. She hears people moving, but no voices. Hates fighting her way up stairs, up hills, up things she can’t see over. Has no idea what’s coming next, except that it probably has heavy troopers.

She should’ve brought grenades, or one of those arc welders. Power armor is all metal, isn’t it?

Wishes she’d thought that one through. Arc welders are nasty shit just on skin, would’ve been useful for this whole battle. Better than pinging bullets off power armor and hoping for a lucky hit.

Keeps her machete sheathed--that’s for slashing, not stabbing. Keeps the Bowie knife close, though, rehearses the movements in her head. Bullets are shit against a heavy trooper, but you get close enough, you can knife them same as a ranger or anyone else. Just have to know the faults in the armor, the cracks and bends where people will bleed. Neck, knees, elbows, stomach…

At the top of the stairs, there’s a room full of traps. She only figures it out when she feels the tug of a trip wire on her ankle, and immediately backpedals into the stairwell.

Grenade bouquet makes her ears ring, but she’s far enough away it doesn’t actually hurt her. They know she’s here now, though, and she can hear two people scuffling toward her. Heavy boots, whoosh of coats, sucking wheezing breathing of ranger helmets.

Guns then.

Not knives.

Not yet.

One of them rounds the corner at the top of the stairwell, and she guns him down, vaults up the stairs, then, keeps her eyes at the end of the hallway, so she can see the tripwires and the bear traps.

Jumps the tripwires, sidesteps the bear traps, fires a bullet into the second ranger, who’s just turning to fire at her.

Breathes for a moment, as she steps over this corpse. Feels the exhaustion settle heavy over her.

Oliver, next.

Oliver and whoever his guards are.

However many there are.

She wishes for Strix back.

In her hood, her bird peeps.

She draws her knife, secures her rifle on her back. Doesn't need it, for this. No use, shooting bullets at men in tin cans.

_There are a few places you can stab someone in full armor easily_ and it’s Head Vulture’s voice in her ear, her ghost hands on her wrists, showing her where a knife goes. _Through the chin, through the throat, at the wrist or the elbow or the knee or between the breastpiece and stomach plate_.

She’s caused enough death.

This is easy.

This is why she’s here, this is why Caesar has loosed her leash, why Lanius didn’t leave her in his tent. Why she walked back to the Mojave.

She sucks a breath deep, fights back the cough that comes with it, screams as she hurls herself up the stairs.

“ _Non timebo homines_!”

***

She is holding his head, when she walks out of the compound.

His hair twisted through her fingers, his blood dripping on her boots. She's covered in it--her jeans are soaked in blood, her shirt too, her face splattered with it and her sleeves red to her elbows. She’ll have bloodstains to scrub out for days.

Lanius takes the head, raises it, roars their victory. The men take her, raise her from her feet, carry her above them, roar their victories.

Underneath the blood, her knuckles are white where she grips her machete.

***

The men hail her, as she walks through the Fort--Daughter of Mars, Courier-Queen, Deliverer of the Mojave.

Her escort walks her to the weather station, now outfitted with a bed. An actual bed, with a frame and sheets and a pillow, even.

“You’ll stay here until the rout of the Mojave is complete,” he tells her, and she nods. Settles on the bed, boots on the floor.

“Can I have a basin of water and some soap?” she asks. “And a razor.”

“Of course,” he agrees, and leaves.

Siri is the one who gets sent back. She has a few gallon jugs of water, a wooden basin, a straight razor. Food, too--half a loaf of bread and an apple and a chunk of meat sliced off the brahmin over the fire.

“You did it,” Siri says, her voice neutral. Carefully neutral. She holds no love of the Legion. Knows it’s her only option, now, though.

“I did,” Lucinda agrees, takes the plate of food. Stares at it.

“Why the razor?” Siri asks, sets the item in question on the table close by.

“Want to cut my hair,” Lucinda replies. She takes her birdnest from her coat--her bird is getting big now--sets it on the table next to the razor. She sets the food on the table, too, then stands and shucks her coat. Leaves it in a crumpled pile on the floor. Canvas boot-covers next, then her boots. Shirt, bra. Pants, socks, underwear.

She begins pouring water in the basin, and Siri takes a step back. Gives her space.

When it's full, she unbraids her hair, kneels next to it, and dunks her head in. Hold her breath, plugs her nose, lets the silence of the water fill her senses for a moment before she drags herself back out, soaking wet.

“Would you like any help?” Siri asks.

Lucinda shakes her head. “But thank you for the offer.” She reaches for the straight razor, begins hacking at the hair on the sides of her head. Thinks better of it, after a moment, separates out her hair and sets the razor down. Siri leans back against the table, crosses her arms over her stomach.

Lucinda does one long braid from the front of her head, all the way down the back, braids it so it hangs halfway down her back. Leaves the sides out, though, and then picks up the razor again. Starts chopping.

“It would be easier with scissors,” Siri murmurs.

“Would be,” Lucinda agrees, smiles. Takes off a fistful of hair. “Oh well.”

“Why cut it?” Siri asks.

“Don’t want to be pretty anymore,” Lucinda replies, shears off another chunk of hair.

Siri sits back and watches as hair falls to the floor, as Lucinda sweeps it up and leaves it in a pile. Watches as Lucinda takes the soap to her coat sleeves--too stained now to ever be truly bloodless, but the stains do fade to mottled brown--watches as she scrubs her shirt and pants and bootcovers. Watches as she swishes her boots around in the water, then dries them off.

“Don’t you have work here?” Lucinda asks, as she soaks one of her socks and uses it to start scrubbing at the blood splattered on her neck and chest.

“Anyone who's here is celebrating your rout of the dam. All the other women are helping. I won’t be missed for a long while yet.”

“Hm.” Lucinda smiles, looks down at herself as she scrubs. “Thank you for coming to see me.”

“They’re talking about what to do with you.”

“No immediate crucifixion?”

“No, although I heard it discussed. Something about your husband and disobeying him.”

“That’d be a stretch.” She tosses the sock into the basin. “You’re free to go, if you want.”

“I’d rather stay here than deal with the men,” Siri replies, and sits back on the table, letting her feet dangle. Lucinda grins at her.

“Then I’m glad to have you.”


End file.
